Past exam of the nuclear and particle physics course of the University of Oxford / 2022 / 2 / e

The following are the leading quantum electrodynamics diagrams. Solid arrows indicate fermion-number flow, and wavy lines indicate photons. The heavy source line represents a charged nucleus; its recoil allows four-momentum conservation.

For Compton scattering, $e^{-}\gamma \to e^{-}\gamma$, there are two diagrams: absorption of the incident photon followed along the electron line by emission of the outgoing photon, and the opposite ordering. These are the $s$- and $u$-channel electron propagators. Both scattering amplitudes are order $e^2$.

For bremsstrahlung, $e^{-}Z\to e^{-}Z\gamma$, a virtual photon transfers momentum between the electron and the source. The real photon is emitted before or after this interaction along the electron line. These two dominant external-field diagrams have scattering amplitudes of order $Z{e}^3$. A full finite-mass charged-target calculation also includes radiation from the target; it is suppressed in the heavy stationary-source approximation used here.

For nuclear-field pair production, $\gamma Z\to e^{-}{e}^{+}Z$, crossing the preceding diagrams gives two order-$Z{e}^3$ contributions, with the incoming real photon and the exchanged virtual photon in either order along the pair's fermion line. An isolated real photon cannot produce a massive pair in vacuum: its invariant squared mass is zero, whereas the pair has invariant squared mass at least $4m_e^2$. The source absorbs recoil momentum.