Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/ia/paper-4/12b/a/solution

Use metric signature , as required by the sign of the scalar product in this question. For a massive particle, the four-momentum is
For a photon of positive frequency and direction , the Planck constant gives and
A future-pointing timelike four-vector has and in this signature. The ordinary Euclidean Cauchy-Schwarz inequality yields
This is stronger than the requested nonnegative inequality. For an electron and a positron of rest mass , their future-pointing timelike four-momenta have . Thus
which cannot equal the null norm of a single photon. Four-momentum conservation forbids spontaneous photon decay into an electron-positron pair in vacuum. An external body or field able to exchange momentum would be a different system.

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