Electron-positron annihilation into two photons Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
The leading scattering amplitude is the sum of two tree-level Feynman diagrams, with the outgoing photons attached in either order to the fermion line. The Dirac propagator carries momentum or for incoming electron momentum . Their sum obeys the two-photon fermion Ward identity, although individual diagrams need not. Crossing symmetry relates this amplitude to Compton scattering.
Muon-antimuon annihilation into two photons Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
At tree level this QED process has two internal muon exchange diagrams, differing by the order of the two outgoing photon vertices. Their propagator momenta are and for incoming muon momentum . The amplitude begins at order and obeys the two-photon fermion Ward identity. Identical final photons require the usual factorial correction when integration over the full final-state Lorentz-invariant phase space would otherwise count them twice.
Vary the Maxwell Lagrangian with respect to . Since and is antisymmetric,
After integration by parts, the Euler-Lagrange field equation is
The gauge transformation leaves unchanged because partial derivatives commute. This gauge invariance means that potentials related in this way represent the same electromagnetic field; all four potential components are not independent physical photon degrees of freedom. In particular, the ungauged kinetic operator is singular and its temporal canonical momentum vanishes.
Choose the Lorenz gauge . The field equation then becomes . Residual gauge transformations with preserve this condition. The correctly named Lorenz gauge condition concerns the divergence of the potential; Lorentz covariance is the separate transformation property of the equations.
For the alternative quadratic Lagrangian density, direct differentiation gives
so its Euler-Lagrange field equation is also . This density is the Feynman-gauge Maxwell kinetic density after a boundary-term subtraction. Indeed, with ,
The divergence identity follows by expanding and commuting its second derivatives. The quadratic density alone describes four wave equations; the gauge constraint must still be incorporated in the physical states. It is not an unconstrained four-positive-polarization replacement for Maxwell equations.
Using this specified boundary-term convention, the canonical momentum conjugate to is
The canonical commutation relations are therefore
with field-field and momentum-momentum brackets zero. Equivalently . The temporal component has the opposite sign to the spatial components; replacing the metric by a positive Euclidean one would destroy these brackets.
The wave equation gives massless frequencies . Hermiticity pairs its positive- and negative-frequency solutions, so the Heisenberg picture field has the expansion
This is a real field expansion for each component, but its oscillator metric is indefinite. The assumed brackets, with the dagger's vector index restored, are
They verify the photon oscillator completeness and canonical brackets. Inserting gives at equal times
The other brackets cancel between the two frequency contributions. Thus both the normalization and the sign are needed.
The Gupta-Bleuler formalism imposes the Lorenz gauge condition weakly on states:
Here is the annihilation, positive-frequency part. Setting the full divergence to zero as an operator would conflict with the four-component canonical commutation relations. The subsidiary condition instead selects a physical pre-space inside the covariant photon Fock space, followed by a quotient of its null states.
Apply it to . Commuting through the creator gives a multiple of . Hence the allowed photon polarization vectors obey
Take . The complete solution is
with complex coefficients. The last two vectors are transverse linear photon polarizations, and gives the two circular photon polarizations. The first vector is , the allowed temporal-longitudinal combination. A purely spatial longitudinal vector by itself does not satisfy the subsidiary condition.
The oscillator brackets give, apart from the positive continuum normalization factor,
Momentum eigenstates are distributionally normalized; a box or a wave packet makes the norm statement literal. The allowed longitudinal combination has zero norm because , and it is orthogonal to every constrained state since . It also gives a pure-gauge field wave: the field strength of vanishes. Thus and represent the same physical photon polarization. The Gupta-Bleuler null-state quotient removes this null direction and leaves two positive-norm transverse photon photon polarizations. The negative-norm temporal oscillator of the unrestricted space is not an extra physical state. This is the transverse one-photon physical quotient.
Finally verify the two-photon fermion Ward identity directly for electron-positron annihilation into two photons. Define and the reduced Dirac propagator
The equality follows from the Clifford algebra, since . The incoming Dirac spinors obey and . On replacing one inserted photon polarization vector by , the spinor factor in the two diagrams is
At the electron end, , so
For the other diagram, four-momentum conservation gives . Hence
The two contributions therefore cancel exactly:
Individual diagrams need not vanish; their sum implements the Ward identity. Linearity then gives invariance under , as required by gauge invariance. In particular, the null longitudinal photon polarization proportional to has zero physical production amplitude. Physical scattering produces the transverse photon classes, not an independent longitudinal massless photon.
Use throughout. Vary the Maxwell action with respect to the electromagnetic four-potential. Antisymmetry of the electromagnetic field tensor gives . After integration by parts, the Euler-Lagrange field equation is
A gauge transformation leaves unchanged because partial derivatives commute. It therefore leaves the Maxwell action and observable electromagnetic fields unchanged: different potentials represent the same physical field. This redundancy matters for canonical quantization: before gauge fixing, the momentum conjugate to vanishes and the four potential components cannot be treated as four independent physical oscillators.
Choose the Lorenz gauge , attainable by solving with suitable boundary data. The Euler-Lagrange field equation then reduces to
Residual Lorenz gauge symmetry consists of transformations with . The gauge condition and this residual redundancy ultimately leave two transverse polarizations of a free photon.
For the specified kinetic density , one has . Its Euler-Lagrange field equation is therefore . This density is the Feynman-gauge Maxwell kinetic density after a boundary-term subtraction, since
The divergence follows by expanding both sides and commuting the second derivatives. Thus the wave equation follows from a Feynman gauge action; the additional physical-state condition will implement the Lorenz gauge. One must not impose inside the original action before varying it.
Take the covariant components as canonical coordinates. The canonical momentum computed from is
The equal-time canonical Poisson brackets are , with coordinate-coordinate and momentum-momentum brackets zero. Applying canonical quantization gives
In particular . The negative temporal sign is the source of the indefinite state-space norm in covariant photon quantization.
The spatial Fourier transform of the wave equation gives an oscillator of frequency for each component. The Hermitian adjoint condition on the electromagnetic four-potential then yields the mode expansion of a free field
These are massless on shell modes. Consistently with the preceding equal-time canonical commutation relation,
The normalization is the same as for the scalar modes, with replacing the species identity matrix.
Gupta-Bleuler quantization starts with the Fock vacuum annihilated by every and imposes only the annihilation, or positive-frequency part of a quantum field, of the Lorenz gauge condition:
Imposing the entire Hermitian field divergence as a strong operator identity would be incompatible with the four-component canonical commutation relation. The weaker condition suffices: between two physical states its positive-frequency part vanishes on the ket, and its negative-frequency part vanishes on the bra. Hence .
For a one-photon state , commuting the constraint through the creator gives
Thus the allowed photon polarization vectors satisfy . Their state inner product, with the common momentum-normalization factor suppressed, is . Momentum eigenstates are delta-normalized; the same statements hold with finite norms for normalizable wave packets.
Rotate the spatial axes so that . The constraint is , so the complete allowed family is
The first vector is the allowed longitudinal gauge polarization, proportional to the null four-momentum . Its state has zero norm because ; it is also orthogonal to every constrained state because . A purely spatial vector alone is not an allowed physical polarization: its time component must accompany it to satisfy the constraint. The other two vectors are transverse polarizations, perpendicular to , with positive unit norms. For the displayed family,
The timelike negative-norm excitation has been excluded by the constraint, and the remaining form is positive semidefinite. The Gupta-Bleuler null-state quotient identifies and , removing the null direction. It leaves exactly two transverse physical photon polarizations with a positive inner product; their bosonic Fock space is the physical photon state space.
Finally use Feynman slash notation, , and impose four-momentum conservation . The external Dirac spinors obey
Set and . Replacing by in the first term of the electron-positron annihilation into two photons amplitude, the rightmost contracted vertex obeys
Since the Clifford algebra implies , that term becomes
For the second term, four-momentum conservation gives . The contracted vertex is now adjacent to the outgoing positron spinor on the left, so
Consequently
The two terms cancel, proving the two-photon fermion Ward identity
Exchanging the two photon labels proves the same result for . By linearity the amplitude is invariant under on either external photon leg. Therefore the null longitudinal gauge polarization has zero production amplitude: physical scattering produces only the two transverse photon polarizations. This cancellation also shows why both photon orderings in the tree-level Feynman diagrams are essential; either term alone fails the Ward identity.
Use signature and electron charge , with . Then . Write the process as . Physical external states satisfy
and the photon polarization vectors obey . Choose unit physical polarizations with ; representatives differing by a multiple of the corresponding null momentum describe the same physical polarization. The external spinors obey , , with . Outgoing polarization appears complex conjugated, so this formula includes helicity states as well as real linear polarizations.
The needed QED Feynman rules are a vertex , an internal Dirac propagator , the external spinors, and the incoming/outgoing photon polarization vectors. There is no internal photon at this order and no elementary two-photon–Dirac seagull vertex. The two photon orderings along the electron line give internal momenta and . Defining the matrix element by , their sum is
The denominators are and . Both terms are essential; this is the tree-level Compton amplitude.
Figure 1.
Compton tree diagrams and the four one-loop classes before exchanging the external photons
. Details.
To prove the incoming Ward identity, replace by and write , with the Feynman boundary prescription understood. The physical nonzero-photon kinematics keeps these tree denominators off the electron pole. Since
the external Dirac equations imply
Therefore the two contracted terms are and its negative, and cancel. By linearity,
This is the two-photon fermion Ward identity. An analogous cancellation holds for the outgoing photon. Gauge-equivalent polarization representatives have the same scattering amplitude, so a longitudinal pure-gauge component is not an extra physical photon state. Individual diagrams do not generally satisfy this identity; their sum does.
For perturbative order, each elementary QED vertex has one photon leg. If is the number of internal photon lines and , the vertex parity of a QED amplitude gives
Thus there is no third-order contribution. At fourth order, and, counting all three legs per vertex with four external legs, . A connected graph has loop number .
The nonzero one-loop classes on the open electron line are an internal-electron self-energy insertion, a vertex correction at either external-photon vertex, and a virtual photon spanning both photon vertices, giving the four-point box class. The first figure sketches each class for one photon ordering; interchange the two external photon attachments for its crossed partner. This yields two internal-self-energy graphs, four vertex graphs and two spanning-box graphs. They use the usual photon propagator, for example in Feynman gauge.
Figure 2.
External-leg insertions, fourth-order counterterms and the odd-photon loops that cancel
. Details.
For completeness, one-loop diagram classes for Compton scattering also depend on whether one is drawing an unamputated correlation function or a physical amplitude. Electron self-energies can be attached to either external electron leg, and photon vacuum polarization can be attached to either external photon leg, for both photon orders. In an on-shell renormalized S-matrix, these are accounted for by LSZ reduction and external-field residues rather than counted again as independent amputated graphs. Photon-leg corrections are not vacuum-polarization insertions on an internal Born photon: there is no such Born line.
At the same fourth order, a renormalized calculation has one mass or electron-field counterterm on the internal electron line, or one vertex counterterm at either Born vertex; the crossed partners are included. Each counterterm is a relative order- correction to the order- tree amplitude. External-field normalization must follow the same convention.
A possible closed electron loop with three photon vertices, linked to the external electron line by a virtual photon, cancels between its two orientations by Furry's theorem. Transposing the loop and using gives an extra sign , so its orientation-reversed partner is its negative. A one-photon tadpole likewise vanishes. Disconnected vacuum bubbles are removed by vacuum normalization. The first genuine radiative corrections are fourth order, with the internal self-energy, vertex and spanning-box classes and their consistently included renormalization terms.
Take incoming electron momentum and positron momentum , with outgoing photon momenta , so . The leading electron-positron annihilation into two photons has two tree-level Feynman diagrams, differing by the order in which the two outgoing photons attach to the charged-fermion line.
The arrows indicate fermion flow. An incoming positron has the opposite flow direction to its physical momentum; the lower row uses an outgoing electron instead.
The required QED Feynman rules, with interaction , are a vertex , a Dirac propagator , an incoming electron spinor , an incoming positron adjoint , and an outgoing photon polarization . Here Feynman slash notation means , and the external Dirac equations are and .
Put , omitting only the propagator's overall factor . Multiplying the two vertices and the propagator gives
The diagrammatic expression is . The relative sign is plus because the two photons are bosons; exchanging their attachments does not exchange external fermions. The amplitude is of order .
A physical photon polarization vector obeys and , with the gauge equivalence . One can choose a transverse representative with and normalize . There are two physical transverse polarizations.
To prove the requested two-photon fermion Ward identity, replace by . Away from an internal pole, is the inverse of , with the boundary prescription understood. The first term simplifies because
For the second term, four-momentum conservation gives , so
The two contributions are therefore and , which cancel. Interchanging the photon labels proves the other contraction vanishes. By linearity, adding a multiple of either photon momentum to its polarization leaves the summed amplitude unchanged. This is gauge invariance: longitudinal gauge representatives do not describe an additional physical photon state. An individual diagram does not generally have this property.
For Compton scattering, let be incoming electron and photon momenta and the outgoing ones. The diagrams in the lower row have intermediate electron momenta and respectively. The same QED Feynman rules give
Their denominators are and , the - and -channel denominators. In annihilation the two exchanged-electron channels instead carry and . Crossing symmetry relates the two expressions by moving the positron to an outgoing electron and one outgoing photon to an incoming photon, with the corresponding momentum and polarization replacements. There is no two-photon contact vertex for the minimally coupled Dirac electron. Both processes require the sum of the two photon orders to satisfy the Ward identity.
Take the muon mass to be , and use the quantum electrodynamics convention with . Let be the incoming muon and antimuon momenta and the outgoing photon momenta, so . External particles are on shell: and . The two tree-level Feynman diagrams are the two orders in which the photon legs attach to the muon line. There is no three-photon QED vertex, and therefore no single-photon annihilation diagram into two photons at this order.
The QED Feynman rules needed here are the vertex , the Dirac propagator
an incoming muon spinor , an incoming antimuon adjoint , and an outgoing photon polarization . At a vertex enforce four-momentum conservation. Spinor products are ordered along the fermion line; exchanging the external photons introduces no relative minus sign. Define and .
With the convention that a diagram contributes , the two muon-antimuon annihilation amplitudes are
Their denominators are respectively and , where , . A different consistent overall amplitude-phase convention has no physical effect.
A physical photon polarization vector obeys , and represents an equivalence class . For a real null momentum, adding preserves transversality. One can additionally choose transverse spatial vectors with and ; there are two independent physical polarizations. The equivalence class removes the unphysical longitudinal direction, rather than imposing four independent physical polarization states.
The invariance of the total amplitude is a two-photon fermion Ward identity. Replace by and put , . The external Dirac equations give
Away from propagator poles, ; the identity extends with the common Feynman prescription. Therefore
The two terms in the bracket then give and , which cancel. Exchanging photon labels proves the second Ward identity. Thus the sum is unchanged under for either photon. Neither diagram is generally gauge-invariant separately. Physically, longitudinal pure-gauge polarization does not couple to the observable scattering amplitude; only the two transverse photon degrees of freedom contribute.
For Compton scattering write the incoming momenta as and outgoing momenta as , with . The outgoing muon contributes , the incoming photon contributes without conjugation, and the outgoing photon contributes . The two tree-level Compton amplitudes are
These are the lower two diagrams. Their intermediate muon momenta are and , with denominators and . The first attaches the incoming photon before the outgoing photon along fermion flow; the second reverses that attachment order. Both contribute at order in the amplitude.
Compton scattering has one incoming and one outgoing muon and one photon on each side; annihilation has an incoming particle-antiparticle pair and two outgoing photons. Accordingly the external spinors/polarizations and physical Mandelstam channels differ, although both arise from the same two-vertex QED matrix element. Crossing symmetry relates them by continuing and one outgoing photon momentum , with the corresponding external wavefunction replacements. The annihilation channel becomes the Compton channel and the other channel becomes its channel. Identical final photons require a factor in an annihilation phase-space integral over an otherwise double-counted full final-state region; there is no analogous final-state identical-particle factor for the muon-photon Compton final state. Gauge cancellation holds for the summed Compton amplitude as well.