1 research outputs found
Non-exponential decay in quantum field theory and in quantum mechanics: the case of two (or more) decay channels
We study the deviations from the exponential decay law, both in quantum field
theory (QFT) and quantum mechanics (QM), for an unstable particle which can
decay in (at least) two decay channels. After a review of general properties of
non-exponential decay in QFT and QM, we evaluate in both cases the decay
probability that the unstable particle decays in a given channel in the time
interval between and An important quantity is the ratio of the
probability of decay into the first and the second channel: this ratio is
constant in the Breit-Wigner limit (in which the decay law is exponential) and
equals the quantity , where and
are the respective tree-level decay widths. However, in the full
treatment (both for QFT and QM) it is an oscillating function around the mean
value and the deviations from this mean value can be
sizable. Technically, we study the decay properties in QFT in the context of a
superrenormalizable Lagrangian with scalar particles and in QM in the context
of Lee Hamiltonians, which deliver formally analogous expressions to the QFT
case.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures. To appear in "Foundations of Physics