Massless leptonic W decay width (${\Gamma }_{\ell }=g^2{M}_W/(48\pi )$)

The chiral weak charged current vertex $-ig{\gamma }^{\mu }(1-{\gamma }_5)/(2\sqrt{2})$ gives the spin-averaged squared matrix element $g^2{M}_W^2/3$ for an on-shell W boson decaying to a massless charged lepton and antineutrino. Integrating two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space gives ${\Gamma }_{\ell }=g^2{M}_W/(48\pi )$. The massive-vector spin average divides by three; an extra neutrino-helicity factor would incorrectly double count the chiral projector.

For a resting W boson with real spatial polarization vector along $z$, the fermion spin sum gives $\sum |\mathcal{M}{|}^2=g^2{M}_W^2{\sin }^2\theta /2$ for massless charged lepton and antineutrino momenta. The two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space gives the displayed angular decay rate. Since $\int {\sin }^2\theta d\Omega =8\pi /3$, the integrated width is $g^2{M}_W/(48\pi )$, equal to the unpolarized width. The massive-vector spin average changes the angular distribution, not the total width. No initial spin average is taken for a specified pure polarization.

For an on-shell W with zero transverse recoil and massless leptons, $p_T=(M_W/2)\sin \theta$. Mapping both angular roots to one transverse momentum produces an integrable inverse-square-root edge. For a normalized polar distribution $3(1-\cos \theta {)}^2/8$, the density in $x=2p_T/M_W$ is $3x(2-x^2)/(4\sqrt{1-x^2})$. Finite width, transverse recoil and detector resolution smear the edge.