|
Articles Particle Physics Neutral Weak Interactions and Particle Decays (1976)
Neutral Weak Interactions and Particle Decays (1976) |
|
Neutral weak interactions have now been observed experimentally in 
and 
scattering. It is important to study their form to see, for
example, whether they can be described by current-current Lagrangians, and combined with charged weak currents and
electromagnetism in a gauge theory. Data on and interactions cannot, however, distinguish between a wide variety of possible
combinations of Dirac interactions [1]. Other sources of information are therefore
desirable.
Stellar [2] and atomic [3] effects have been
considered, but any results are marred by the difficulties of the ancillary physics. The weak correction to the muon
-factor is expected to be only about 1% of the magnitude of the
hadronic corrections [4]. Atomic effects are quite promising, and have shown [5] that 
violation is absent to 
, but any results which are obtained in this manner may hold only at very
low energies.
All present data is consistent with the Weinberg-Salam model and 
[6]. We shall often give the predictions of this theory below.
In the present paper, we consider what can be learned about neutral weak interactions (NWI) from a study of particle decays.
