Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-and-nuclear-physics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/section-b/5/a/solution

In the pion rest frame, write its four-momentum as and the charged lepton's as . By four-momentum conservation, the massless antineutrino has , with . Therefore
Its energy is , and for a massless antineutrino, . The final momenta are equal and opposite, so
The expression is positive precisely when the two-body decay is energetically allowed, , neglecting the neutrino mass.

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