Lifetime

Lifetime of N:

Fermis Golden Rule (m1om2+m3++mn)

Tells you k:
Griffiths eqn 6.15

Dont worry about S yet

For 2-body decays:
Lifetimes and Interactions
Think of the world Hamiltonian as

The free Hamiltonian preserves particle

types (no decays)

Each of the interactions HS, HEM, HW has

different properties
Different selection rules
Different pairs of states may be connected
In general
Lifetimes and Interactions
A selection rule may make one or more of the matrix
elements 0
If so, in general, only the largest one will matter
Matrix elements of one type (for instance, strong
matrix elements) typically vary within 1 order of
magnitude (rule of thumb, not a guarantee) among all
pairs
i.e. most strong matrix elements are within an order of
magnitude of one another
Spacing between MS,MEM, MW usually much larger than x10

Strong: W ~10
Hence there are effectively 3 kinds of lifetimes

EM: W ~ 10
-23 s (ct~1 fm)

Weak (four-fermion): W ~10 s (ct~cm)

-20 s (ct~1 pm)
-9
Selection Rule Rules of Thumb
DONT TAKE THIS SUPER-SERIOUSLY
For the rest of the semester well effectively be studying
the selection rules in detail
But its often useful to be able to guess

Strong decays
Connect hadronic (quark) particles to hadronic (quark) final
states, esp. involving pions
EM decays
Connect charged lepton (e.g. e-) or quark states to final
states with photons
Weak decays
Four-fermion type connection to final states with neutrinos
Strange Particles