Coursera Flash Sale
40% Off Coursera Plus for 3 Months!
Grab it
Learn about the Landau Yang theorem and its modern extensions in this physics lecture exploring fundamental particle decay restrictions. Discover how this decades-old theorem prohibits massive spin-1 particles from decaying into two photons through representation theory of the Poincaré group and Bose statistics, without requiring any action or Lagrangian formulation. Explore generalizations to supersymmetric theories that extend the prohibition to photino decays involving Majorana fermions. Examine how introducing photon mass, regardless of magnitude, can circumvent these theoretical constraints, and investigate how Stueckelberg mass terms can evade supersymmetric selection rules. Gain insights into the fundamental principles governing particle interactions and decay processes in both standard and supersymmetric quantum field theories.
