Effective theory approach to unstable particles

Abstract

We present a novel treatment of resonant massive particles appearing as intermediate states in high energy collisions. The approach uses effective field theory methods to treat consistently the instability of the intermediate resonant state. As a result gauge invariance is respected in every step and calculations can in principle be extended to all orders in perturbation theory, the only practical limitation in going to higher orders being the standard difficulties related to multi-loop integrals. We believe that the longstanding problem related to the treatment of instability of particles is now solved.