Thursday, April 12, 2018

quantum mechanics - Proof of Yang's theorem


Yang's theorem states that a massive spin-1 particle cannot decay into a pair of identical massless spin-1 particles. The proof starts by going to the rest frame of the decaying particle, and relies on process of elimination of possible amplitude structures.


Let ϵV be the spin vector of the decaying particle in its rest frame, and let ϵ1 and ϵ2 be the polarization 3-vector of the massless particles with 3-momenta k and k respectively.


In the literature, I've seen arguments saying that


M1(ϵ1×ϵ2).ϵV, and M2(ϵ1.ϵ2)(ϵV.k) don't work because they don't respect Bose symmetry of the final state spin-1 particles.


But, why is M3(ϵV×ϵ1).ϵ2+(ϵV×ϵ2).ϵ1 excluded? Sure, it's parity violating (if parent particle is parity even), but that's not usually a problem


Thanks



Answer




Because M3 as written above actually vanishes by a simple vector identity. On the first term, write


(ϵV×ϵ1).ϵ2=(ϵ2×ϵV).ϵ1


which cancels the second term.


[there goes my bounty]


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