Precision Theoretical Analysis of Neutron Radiative Beta Decay

TL;DR

This paper provides a precise theoretical calculation of the neutron radiative beta decay rate, including weak magnetism and proton recoil effects, revealing a significant increase in the predicted decay rate.

Contribution

It offers a detailed Standard Model calculation of neutron radiative beta decay incorporating higher-order effects, improving accuracy over previous estimates.

Findings

Weak magnetism and proton recoil increase decay rate by about 0.70%.

Compared to neutron beta decay, these effects contribute about 0.16%.

Results enhance understanding of neutron decay processes.

Abstract

In the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and in the tree--approximation we calculate the rate and branching ratio of the neutron radiative beta decay with one-real photon emission by taking into account the contributions of the weak magnetism and proton recoil to order 1/m_p of the large proton mass m_p expansion. We find that the obtained contributions of the weak magnetism and proton recoil increase the rate and branching ratio of the neutron radiative beta decay by about 0.70%. This is large compared with the contribution of the weak magnetism and proton recoil of about 0.16% to the rate of the neutron beta decay, calculated in Phys. Rev. D88, 073002 (2013).