(29012024)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

What we have seen so far are the interactions of these lefthanded SU(2) fermion doublets with the Higgs boson and the way in which these fermions acquire their masses through their interactions with the vev of the Higgs field.

In -electroweak part of the Standard Model (SM), fermions also interact with vector gauge bosons such as the three vector gauge components associated with isospin for the lefthanded SU(2) fermion doublets, and the U(1) vector gauge boson that is associated with the hypercharge for the said lefthanded fermion doublets. Basically, these vectors determine the way in which covariant derivative operators for the fermions are constructed in terms of the associated isospin and hypercharge.

(15102023)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

Construction of The Electro-weak theory

We have just presented an incomplete construction of the electro-weak theory and now we come to a more inclusive construction to accommodate the other generations of the lepton family and the three generations of the quark family. For such chief purpose of this section, we have [5] as our reference guide in constructing the Lagrangian structure of the Electro-weak theory, where left-handed fermions are built into -doublet representations, while the right-handed ones in -singlet representations except for all neutrinos, which are in the proceeding construction, don’t have right-handed singlets.

(26052023)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

A more general setup is where the Higgs boson carries a full four-momentum, . Here, the Higgs boson has more than one spatial four-momentum components as it travels before decaying. We still attribute to the fermion and anti-fermion pair same full four-momenta, i being the particle index. The four-momentum conservation implied by the Dirac-delta function in this case yields the energy-momentum conservation for the final states

(19.9.1)

and if in the final state all leptons carry equal energies, then that energy-momentum conservation results in

(19.9.2)

implying in turn that the fermion and anti-fermion (leptons) carry equal but opposite spatial momenta, , given that (19.9.2) is non-vanishing. From this we find that

(19.9.3)

We take (19.1) to write

(19.9.4)

With this we may then write (19.8.4) as

(19.9.5)

where in the result, the third spatial components of four-momenta are suppressed,

Take note that the fermion and anti-fermion are all in the up spin states but directed in equal but opposite spatial momenta.

A cautionary remark must be duly noted here regarding the assumed consequence following (19.9.2) that the final state spatial momenta are directed opposite to each other, . On a careful note, this is not a necessary or the only condition to satisfy (19.9.2) although this is just one of at least two conditions or cases that satisfy the said equation. The final states coming out with opposite spatial momenta, can happen only in the rest frame (center- of-mass frame) of the Higgs boson, where the Higgs boson doesn’t have spatial components of the four-momentum, as it decays, while the final states come out with equal energies in opposite directions, leading to (19.9.3).

The other condition imposed to satisfy (19.9.2) is where rather in this case we may arrange a setup where the horizontal components of the spatial momenta of the respective final states are equal and along same direction, and the vertical components of the spatial momenta are equal in magnitude but opposite, . This is the case we have just examined in the preceding paragraphs only that in here, we attribute more than one components of the spatial momenta to the initial Higgs boson state, where . However, on a careful note also, the case where necessarily implies that the Higgs boson has the vertical component of its spatial momentum suppressed, so eventually the Higgs boson travelled only in the horizontal direction before decaying.

(06052023)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

The final states, comprising of an out-going electron and an out-going positron are the physical states and they are represented by solid arrows coming out and into a vertex respectively, while the initial Higgs boson state is in broken line coming into the same vertex, where it is signified a delta function to conserve the four-momenta. The physical states are the detected particles but the summation of all four-momenta must take into account the four-momentum of the decayed initial state.

(12012023)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

From there we read off our interaction Hamiltonian of interest

(20.10.4)

that we need as a field operator in (8), where we have dropped off the subscripts in the fermions for convenience.

Spotted right on is that such interaction is directly proportional to the fermion mass and the fermions involved here are lightweight so that the Yukawa coupling constant that is directly proportional to that mass is highly suppressed, given a large vacuum expectation value relative to the first generation fermion masses.

(29092022 updates)First Order Calculations of the Probability Amplitude for Higgs Boson to Electron-Positron Decay

We may now see that expanding the potential in terms of the field components would yield a correct mass term for a time-like particle, which is specifically the Higgs boson and we write the following expansion that is given by

(20.9.7.13)

This mass term is and this enters in the given potential with a correct algebraic sign so that the involved field to which the product is coupled is rightly time-like. Thus, the basic theory involving the Higgs boson to be read off later would have a Higgs boson mass proportional to the product and such mass is to be given by

(20.9.7.14)

We might as well interpret this outcome that gives out the mass of the Higgs boson as due to the Higgs boson’s interaction with the vacuum expectation value or vev of the Higgs field, where in this interaction, the Higgs boson goes along with itself as it would interact with said vev just as the left-handed and right-handed electrons go together to interact with the vev to acquire a mass for a single electron entity. The difference between two cases is that for the Higgs boson it happens in the Higgs potential as it is expanded in terms of the component fields to give the correct mass term for a time-like particle, whereas for the fermions it is in the Yukawa interaction terms.