The Proposed Cleo-c Program and R Measurement Prospects * 1 Cleo-c Program Overview

The proposed experimental program (CLEO-c) for a charm factory based on a modification of the Cornell Electron Storage Ring is summarized. The prospects for R measurements over the range 3 GeV ≤ √ s ≤ 7 GeV are examined in detail. The CLEO collaboration is proposing a focused three-year program of charm and QCD physics with the CLEO detector operating in the range √ s = 3 − 5 GeV. The CLEO-c physics program includes a set of measurements that will substantially advance our understanding of important Standard Model processes and set the stage for understanding the larger theory in which we imagine the Standard Model to be embedded. Much of this program revolves around the strong interactions and the pressing need to develop sufficiently powerful tools to deal with an intrinsically non-perturbative theory. At the present time, and for the last twenty years, progress in weak interaction physics and the study of heavy flavor physics has been achieved primarily by seeking those few probes of weak-scale physics that successfully evade or minimize the role of strong interaction physics. The preëminence of the mode B → J/ψK S in measuring sin 2β stems almost entirely from the absence of complications due to the strong interactions. Similarly, the discovery of a previously unrecognized symmetry in QCD, which led to Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET), created an opportunity in heavy-to-heavy quark decays where strong interaction effects are minimized. HQET's identification of the zero-recoil limit as the optimal kinematic point at which to measure b → cℓν decays now dominates the extractions of |V cb | in B physics – not because it is experimentally optimal (quite the opposite!) but because it offers a way to minimize the complications of strong interactions. If we had similar strategies that would allow us to extract |V ub | from b → uℓν measurements without form factor uncertainties, |V td | from B d mixing measurements without decay constant and bag parameter uncertainties, or |V ts | from B s mixing measurements (or limits) without its corresponding decay constant and bag parameter uncertain-* Adapted from " CLEO-c and CESR-c: A New Frontier of Weak and Strong Interactions " , the CLEO-c project description, by the CLEO Collaboration ties, we would be well on our way to understanding the CKM matrix at the few percent level. In the current state of the field this is an unrealized …