Laboratory frame 2026-10-20
The laboratory frame is the reference frame in which an experiment's measuring apparatus is at rest. It need not be the centre-of-momentum frame: a target at rest in the laboratory can be struck by a projectile carrying nonzero total momentum.
In the laboratory frame the incoming particle and the composite move along , while the target is initially at rest. In the equal-energy two-photon decay of a moving particle, zero total transverse momentum makes the two photon directions symmetric about . Each photon has energy and momentum magnitude , so longitudinal momentum conservation gives . Therefore
Their momenta can be written . The opening angle is not in this frame, because the parent carried nonzero total momentum.