t-channel singularities in cosmology and particle physics

Autor: Bohdan Grzadkowski, Michał Iglicki, Stanisław Mrówczyński
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nuclear Physics B, Vol 984, Iss , Pp 115967- (2022)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0550-3213
DOI: 10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2022.115967
Popis: The t-channel singularity of a cross section for a binary 2→2 scattering occurs when the particle exchanged in the t-channel is kinematically allowed to be on its mass shell, that is when the process can be viewed as a sequence of two physical subprocesses: a two-body decay 1→2 and an inverse decay 2→1. We derive conditions for the singularity to be present in a binary process. A class of divergent cross sections for Standard Model processes has been determined and illustrated by the weak analog of the Compton scattering Ze−→Ze−. After critically reviewing regularization methods proposed in literature, we discuss singular processes that occur in a medium composed of particles in thermal equilibrium. The medium is shown to regulate the singularities naturally as particles acquire a non-zero width. We demonstrate a possible cosmological application by calculating thermally averaged cross section for an elastic scattering within a simple scalar model. The transition probability, which is divergent in vacuum, becomes finite when the process occurs in a thermal bath due to the imaginary part of the t-channel mediator's self-energy computed within the Keldysh-Schwinger formalism.
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