A High Precision Measurement of the Neutral Pion Lifetime
    
Dr. Daniel Dale
University of Kentucky

The PrimEx (Primakoff Experiment) collaboration at Jefferson Lab is performing a high precision measurement of the two photon decay width of the neutral pion, .  This new measurement will provide a stringent test of the predictions of quantum chromodynamics in the confinement scale (low energy) regime.  At present, the precision of state-of-the art theoretical calculations is superior to our experimental knowledge of this vertex.  Recent theoretical calculations of the next-to-leading order chiral corrections, however, have predicted a significant increase in the neutral pion decay width to which our new measurement is expected to be sensitive.  I will describe this experiment, as well as outline future plans to study the electromagnetic properties of other mesons.