Radiative Corrections to Decay Processes

Abstract

Radiative corrections associated with the electromagnetic field have been determined for the decay of a fermion of arbitrary mass into a lighter one with the emission of a single boson or of two other fermions; no special assumptions have been made about the nature of the interaction responsible for the instability. The particular example of the muon-electron decay has been worked through in detail. Sufficiently accurate experimental determination of the muon spectrum would permit the observation of a Lamb term without vacuum polarization. Modified formulas for the Michel parameter $\rho$ are given.