Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/iii/paper-47/4/b/ii/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 47 4 b ii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-06
Allowed through second-order weak interactions, not a tree-level neutral-current vertex. This is the flavour-changing transition responsible for neutral kaon mixing, with change of strangeness by two. Box Feynman diagrams contain two W bosons and internal up-type quarks. Their vertices come from the weak charged current and contain CKM matrix factors. At low energy they generate an operator plus its conjugate. The GIM mechanism cancels the flavour-independent part of the internal-quark sum; unequal quark masses leave a nonzero loop amplitude.
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