QED Radiative Corrections to the Decay $\pi^{0} \rightarrow e^{+}e^{-}$

Abstract

In view of the recent interest in the decays of mesons into a pair of light leptons, a computation of the QED radiative corrections to the decay of $\pi^{0}$ into an electron-positron pair is presented here. The results indicate that the peak value of the differential decay rate is reduced by about $50 \%$, because of soft-photon radiation. The number of $e^{+}e^{-}$ pairs having invariant masses in an energy bin of 0.5 MeV centered around $m_{\pi}$ is found to be about $20 \%$ smaller than the one it would be if radiative corrections were neglected.