Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-and-nuclear-physics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/paper-1/3/c/solution
Past exam of the particle and nuclear physics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 Paper 1 3 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-20
For the neutral quark-antiquark mesons here, . Thus , while . The radiative mode conserves charge conjugation and admits a quark-line photon-emission diagram. Both components of the supplied wavefunction contribute: the charge-weighted flavour overlap is proportional to , so it does not cancel. Its photon energy is .
The mode changes charge conjugation and, more decisively, a spin-zero particle cannot decay into another spin-zero particle and one real photon. In the parent rest frame the photon has helicity , while the opposite-moving pion has helicity zero; the spin-zero two-body helicity selection rule cannot be satisfied. Its on-shell two-body amplitude vanishes even if a weak interaction violates C. A virtual photon subsequently making another pair is a different final state.
For , angular-momentum conservation requires relative orbital angular momentum . Its parity is then negative, matching the parent, but its charge-conjugation eigenvalue is : the two distinct self-conjugate particles are not interchanged by C, so there is no additional factor in this C eigenvalue. The decay is forbidden by strong and electromagnetic charge-conjugation conservation despite being above threshold. A weak contribution would require CP violation as well. At the strong/electromagnetic accuracy of the diagram classification,If extremely small weak CP-violating amplitudes are retained, need not be exactly zero; the one-real-photon spin prohibition remains exact for .
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