No Arabic abstract
We present the first and complete dispersion relation analysis of the inner radiative corrections to the axial coupling constant $g_A$ in the neutron $beta$-decay. Using experimental inputs from the elastic form factors and the spin-dependent structure function $g_1$, we determine the contribution from the $gamma W$-box diagram to a precision better than $10^{-4}$. Our calculation indicates that the inner radiative corrections to the Fermi and the Gamow-Teller matrix element in the neutron $beta$-decay are almost identical, i.e. the ratio $lambda=g_A/g_V$ is almost unrenormalized. With this result, we predict the bare axial coupling constant to be {$mathring{g}_A=-1.2754(13)_mathrm{exp}(2)_mathrm{RC}$} based on the PDG average $lambda=-1.2756(13)$
We assess the ability of future neutron beta decay measurements of up to O(10^{-4}) precision to falsify the standard model, particularly the V-A law, and to identify the dynamics beyond it. To do this, we employ a maximum likelihood statistical framework which incorporates both experimental and theoretical uncertainties. Using illustrative combined global fits to Monte Carlo pseudodata, we also quantify the importance of experimental measurements of the energy dependence of the angular correlation coefficients as input to such efforts, and we determine the precision to which ill-known second-class hadronic matrix elements must be determined in order to exact such tests.
We calculate the radiative corrections of order O(alpha E_e/m_N) as next-to-leading order corrections in the large nucleon mass expansion to Sirlins radiative corrections of order O(alpha/pi) to the neutron lifetime. The calculation is carried out within a quantum field theoretic model of strong low-energy pion--nucleon interactions described by the linear sigma-model (LsM) with chiral SU(2)xSU(2) symmetry and electroweak hadron-hadron, hadron-lepton and lepton-lepton interactions for the electron-lepton family with SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y symmetry of the Standard Electroweak Model (SEM). Such a quantum field theoretic model is some kind a hadronized version of the Standard Model (SM). From a gauge invariant set of the Feynman diagrams with one-photon exchanges we reproduce Sirlins radiative corrections of order O(alpha/pi), calculated to leading order in the large nucleon mass expansion, and calculate next-to-leading corrections of order O(alpha E_e/m_N). This confirms Sirlins confidence level of the radiative corrections O(alpha E_e/m_N). The contributions of the LsM are taken in the limit of the infinite mass of the scalar isoscalar sigma-meson. In such a limit the LsM reproduces the results of the current algebra (Weinberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. {bf 18}, 188 (1967)) in the form of effective chiral Lagrangians of pion-nucleon interactions with non--linear realization of chiral SU(2)xSU(2) symmetry. In such a limit the L$sigma$M is also equivalent to Gasser-Leutwylers chiral quantum field theory or chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) with chiral SU(2)xSU(2)symmetry and the exponential parametrization of a pion-field (Ecker, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. {bf 35}, 1 (1995)).
In a previous article [Phys. Rev. D 79, 053001 (2009)] we estimated the correlated uncertainties associated to the nuclear matrix elements (NME) of neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) within the quasiparticle random phase approximation (QRPA). Such estimates encompass recent independent calculations of NMEs, and can thus still provide a fair representation of the nuclear model uncertainties. In this context, we compare the claim of 0 nu beta beta decay in Ge-76 with recent negative results in Xe-136 and in other nuclei, and we infer the lifetime ranges allowed or excluded at 90% C.L. We also highlight some issues that should be addressed in order to properly compare and combine results coming from different 0 nu beta beta decay candidate nuclei.
Sutherlands theorem dictates that the contribution of the electromagnetic interaction to the decay process (etarightarrow 3pi^{0}) is neglected with respect to the one coming from the difference between the up and down quark masses. In the framework of chiral perturbation theory including virtual photons, we calculated the main diagram concerning the exchange of a virtual photon between two intermediate charged pions. The correction induced by this diagram on the slope parameter amounts to (17%) of the correction induced by the pure strong interaction at one-loop level. If this result is maintained when considering all the diagrams at the chiral order we are working, we can say without any doubt that Sutherlands theorem is strongly violated. As a direct consequence, any determination of light quark masses from the present decay textit{should} take into account the electromagnetic interaction.
In the standard effective V - A theory of low-energy weak interactions (i.e. in the Standard Model (SM)) we analyze the structure of the correlation coefficients S(E_e) and U(E_e), where E_e is the electron energy. These correlation coefficients were introduced to the electron-energy and angular distribution of the neutron beta decay by Ebel and Feldman ( Nucl. Phys. 4, 213 (1957)) in addition to the set of correlation coefficients proposed by Jackson et al. (Phys. Rev. 106, 517 (1957)). The correlation coefficients $S(E_e)$ and $U(E_e)$ are induced by simultaneous correlations of the neutron and electron spins and electron and antineutrino 3-momenta. These correlation structures do no violate discrete P, C and T symmetries. We analyze the contributions of the radiative corrections of order O(alpha/pi), taken to leading order in the large nucleon mass m_N expansion, and corrections of order O(E_e/m_N), caused by weak magnetism and proton recoil. In addition to the obtained SM corrections we calculate the contributions of interactions beyond the SM (BSM contributions) in terms of the phenomenological coupling constants of BSM interactions by Jackson et al. (Phys. Rev. 106, 517 (1957)) and the second class currents by Weinberg (Phys. Rev. 112, 1375 (1958)).