Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/1/a/ii/solution
Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford 2019 1 a ii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Neglect the participating quark and lepton masses, so that the weak charged current selects a left-helicity and a right-helicity . Choose along the proton beam in the partonic centre-of-momentum frame. Then the up quark moves along with spin projection , while the down antiquark moves along with helicity and also has spin projection along . ThusThe collinear two-body initial state has no orbital projection about its collision axis. In this approximation the produced W boson therefore has the indicated transverse polarization; its longitudinal spin state is absent. The unpolarized hadron beams contain other constituent spin states, but these do not participate in this massless charged-current subprocess.
In the final state the Positron has helicity and the electron neutrino has helicity . Along the outgoing charged-lepton direction their combined angular-momentum projection is , because the oppositely moving neutrino has spin projection on that axis. Finite masses, noncollinear production and sea contributions modify the ideal configuration.
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