 Two-body top-quark decay width

Here $x=m_W^2/m_t^2$, the bottom quark mass is neglected, and the W boson is on shell. The weak charged current gives the spin-averaged squared scattering amplitude $g_W^2|V_{tb}{|}^2(m_t^2-m_W^2)(m_t^2+2m_W^2)/(4m_W^2)$. The two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space has $p^{\ast }=(m_t^2-m_W^2)/(2m_t)$; multiplying by $p^{\ast }/(8\pi m_t^2)$ gives the displayed decay width. Its longitudinal-vector contribution explains the large-$m_t$ cubic growth, and its threshold factor makes the width vanish as $m_t\downarrow m_W$. The formula requires $m_t>m_W$ and receives finite-mass and radiative corrections.