Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s10/1/d/solution

After thermalization, approximate the electron and Positron as initially at rest in their centre-of-momentum frame. Their total energy is and total momentum is zero. Two photons must therefore have equal energies and opposite momenta, since . Conservation of energy gives
Residual pair momentum and electron binding cause small departures from exact collinearity and exact photon energy; the standard PET calculation neglects them.

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