The suppression of ss̄ pair creation from tensor meson decays

The decays of tensor mesons into two pseudoscalars mesons and into a vector meson and a pseudoscalar meson have been used for a SU(3) analysis of the tensor nonet. We find compatibility of all tensor decay branching ratios with SU(3) relations assuming no suppression of ss̄ pair creation. If a possible ss̄ suppression is parameterized by one factor λ, it is found to be λ = 0.8 ± 0.2. In addition, the pseudoscalar mixing angle is determined to −(15 ± 3)°.