Integrated massless leptonic tensor 2026-10-06
For the current with rather than , the spin-summed symmetric leptonic tensor is . Integrating the standard two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space of two massless particles givesIts antisymmetric Levi-Civita symbol term integrates to zero. The normalization changes by a factor of four if the current uses instead. The result separates the leptonic integration from hadronic pseudoscalar-to-pseudoscalar form factors in a three-body decay rate.
For a left-handed incoming neutrino, unpolarized electrons, and electron vector/axial couplings , the four-fermion interaction gives . Integrating massless two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space yields . The electron spin average is included, while no sterile neutrino helicity is averaged in.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 47 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Flavour issue in the printed effective interaction. The displayed charged-current factor uses an Electron field even for the muon-neutrino term. Taken literally, this introduces an extra charged-current interaction, contradicting the Standard Model diagrams in part (a). In the Standard Model that factor uses the charged lepton of the same flavour; for Electron scattering the charged-current contribution is therefore present only for . The weak flavour selection in neutrino-electron scattering fixes the physically consistent assignment used below. The literal printed consequence is given afterwards, so the discrepancy is explicit.
At leading order in the Electron mass and in the four-fermion regime, define . The weak neutral current yields the scattering amplitudeAn overall amplitude phase has no observable effect. The Fermi interaction is valid when the exchanged invariants are small compared with the squared weak-boson masses.
Average over the two initial Electron spin states, and sum over final spins. There is no averaging over a sterile right-handed incoming neutrino. Using the fermion spin sum, the averaged square isTo display the trace contraction, defineThe supplied gamma matrix trace identities give the two tensors and . Symmetric-antisymmetric mixed contractions vanish. Set and . The remaining contractions are and , using the stated negative epsilon-contraction sign. Their sum givesThe massless Mandelstam variables satisfy , and the two products are and , respectively. Therefore
In the centre-of-momentum frame, momentum conservation gives . If is the angle cosine between and , then . The massless two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space is , while the flux is . ThusIntegrate and :Consequently the intended coefficients areThis is the massless neutrino-electron contact cross-section.
For completeness, the literal printed muon-neutrino charged-current term would instead shift both couplings by one, exactly as in part (c):For arbitrary real , its linear terms cannot be represented by the requested quadratic form with coupling-independent constants. The Standard Model result and the literal printed interaction are not the same problem.