Paper detail

The current evaluation of Vud

The Vud element of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix can be determined from several different experimental approaches: either 0+-to-0+ superallowed nuclear beta decays, neutron decay, nuclear mirror decays, or pion beta decay. Currently all give consistent results but, because the nuclear superallowed value has an uncertainty at least a factor of seven less than all other results, it dominates the result. A new survey of world superallowed-decay data establishes the Ft values of 14 separate superallowed transitions to a precision of order 0.1% or better; and all 14 are statistically consistent with one another. This very robust data set yields the result Vud = 0.97417(21), the value we recommend.