Include the Z boson amplitude and its quantum interference with the photon amplitude. Define , , , , , andFor the same unpolarized and massless approximations as b, the complete tree-level angular distribution isThe absolute squares include the pure terms and their interference. Put and . The even part is and the odd part is . Thus the forward-backward asymmetry is .
At the Z boson pole, neglect the small photon contribution and use real tree-level couplings. Thenwhere , . For charged leptons, . Fitting the forward/backward counts, after detector and radiation corrections, therefore measures the weak mixing angle, conventionally an effective leptonic angle once electroweak corrections are included. For illustration gives and . This illustrative parameter choice is not extracted from this paper's data. The real tree-level photon-Z boson interference vanishes exactly at the pole but matters away from it.
Work in the W boson rest frame, taking the spin-quantization axis along its laboratory motion. Neglect charged-lepton and neutrino masses. The weak charged current produces a negative-helicity and a positive-helicity antineutrino. Their momenta are opposite, so both spin Vectors point opposite to the charged lepton's direction ; the final total spin projection along is .
Let denote the parent spin projection along . In the given probability amplitude, use and the rotation element . The supplied spin-one rotation elements giveThe transverse states have spin projections ; the longitudinal state has projection zero, not total spin zero. The original diagram below distinguishes momenta from spins and shows the corresponding normalized angular profiles.
Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford 2019 1 a iii Solution 2026-10-25
Let be the angle from the incoming up quark, along the proton direction, to the outgoing charged antilepton in the W boson rest frame. The initial and final spin projections in ii are and . The Wigner small-d matrix therefore givesAfter squaring and normalizing over , the charged-lepton angular distribution isIts integral is one since . The charged antilepton is preferentially emitted toward the antiproton. Measuring the angle from the incoming down antiquark instead replaces by and produces ; the axis convention is part of the answer. Per unit solid angle the normalized density is .
Tau hadronic polarimetry 2026-10-25
The visible angular distribution and laboratory energy in carry information about the parent's spin. For fixed hadronic invariant mass, . A spin-zero recoil has analyzing coefficient . For a spin-one recoil coupled through the V-A interaction, longitudinal and transverse partial rates have weights and opposite slopes, giving . Thus the harder-helicity ordering can reverse when the recoil mass exceeds . A mean invariant mass without spin-dependent spectral weights cannot fix the sign for a mixed sample.
