Leading order quark-antiquark-W-boson vertex in the presence of a magnetic field

Abstract

We compute the leading order modification to the quark-antiquark-$W$-boson vertex in the presence of a constant and uniform magnetic field, specifically for the case where the quark and antiquark are the $u$ and $\bar{d}$, respectively. We find the selection rules for transitions where the $u$, $\bar{d}$, and $W$-boson occupy arbitrary Landau levels. We show that, for the particular case where the initial particles each occupy the lowest Landau level, the $W^{+}$ is also produced in the lowest Landau level with a single polarization aligned with the magnetic field. We also illustrate the general findings by computing the case of transitions between low lying Landau levels and show the correspondence between the polarization vectors for the $W$-boson and the polarization states for the quark and the antiquark.

Comments: 17 pages