Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / iii / Paper 305 / 3 / a

Forbidden at tree level. A photon, gluon, $Z$ boson, or neutral Higgs interaction is flavor diagonal in the quark mass basis, while a $W$ boson connects an up-type quark to a down-type quark. The process $u\bar{c}\to c\bar{u}$ would therefore require a flavor-changing neutral current, which first appears through loops in the Standard Model.

Allowed. A single $t$-channel W boson mediates the weak charged current transitions $u\to d$ and $\bar{c}\to \bar{s}$. The amplitude is proportional to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix product $V_{ud}{V}_{cs}^{\ast }$.

Forbidden. The initial state has total lepton number two and the final state has total lepton number minus two. No renormalizable Standard Model vertex changes total lepton number by four.

Allowed. There are two tree-level Feynman diagrams: $t$-channel Z boson exchange through the weak neutral current, and $s$-channel $W^{+}$ formation through the weak charged current.

Allowed. There are again two tree-level Feynman diagrams: $t$-channel Z boson exchange and the crossed charged-current diagram with a W boson exchanged between the neutrino and electron lines.

The complete tree-level list for (ii), (iv), and (v) is: