Charged-Particle Decay at Finite Temperature
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2012-03-07 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract
Radiative corrections to the decay rate of charged fermions caused by the presence of a thermal bath of photons are calculated in the limit when temperatures are below the masses of all charged particles involved. The cancellation of finite-temperature infrared divergences in the decay rate is described in detail. Temperature-dependent radiative corrections to a two-body decay of a hypothetical charged fermion and to electroweak decays of a muon are given. We touch upon possible implications of these results for charged particles in the early Universe.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1110.2171,
title = {Charged-Particle Decay at Finite Temperature},
author = {Andrzej Czarnecki and Marc Kamionkowski and Samuel K. Lee and Kirill Melnikov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.2171},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
18 pages, 6 figures. v2: typos corrected, bibliography revised, content matches published version