Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/1/e/solution

Assume only Standard Model decay channels, negligible final-state masses, three lepton families, three quark colours and a unitary CKM matrix. The top-quark channels are kinematically closed. Summing the allowed quark channels gives times one leptonic width, while the leptons contribute three. Neglecting QCD and electroweak radiative corrections,
The source's rounded CKM entries give almost the same factor; their tiny nonunitarity is not physically significant. Consequently
The propagated uncertainty uses , taking as fixed. It is the measurement uncertainty within the stated tree-level approximation; omitted radiative corrections are an additional modelling limitation. In particular QCD increases the hadronic width and lowers the inferred coupling when included.
The printed electromagnetic comparison is , not the probability amplitude coupling . Compare like quantities:
Equivalently exceeds . The weak interaction is weak at low energy primarily because of the massive propagator, rather than an exceptionally small fundamental coupling.

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