English

All orders factorization and the Coulomb problem

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2024-09-04 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory Nuclear Theory

Abstract

In the limit of large nuclear charge, Z1Z\gg 1, or small lepton velocity, β1\beta \ll 1, Coulomb corrections to nuclear beta decay and related processes are enhanced as Zα/βZ\alpha/\beta and become large or even non-perturbative (with α\alpha the QED fine structure constant). We provide a constructive demonstration of factorization to all orders in perturbation theory for these processes and compute the all-orders hard and soft functions appearing in the factorization formula. We clarify the relationship between effective field theory amplitudes and historical treatments of beta decay in terms of a Fermi function.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.15929,
  title  = {All orders factorization and the Coulomb problem},
  author = {Richard J. Hill and Ryan Plestid},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.15929},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Matches journal version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:34:11.866Z