The Pauli principle in the soft-photon approach to proton-proton bremstrahlung

Abstract

A relativistic and manifestly gauge-invariant soft-photon amplitude, which is consistent with the soft-photon theorem and satisfies the Pauli Principle, is derived for the proton-proton bremsstrahlung process. This soft-photon amplitude is the first two-u-two-t special amplitude to satisfy all theoretical constraints. The conventional Low amplitude can be obtained as a special case. It is demonstrated that previously proposed amplitudes for this process, both the (u,t) and (s,t) classes, violate the Pauli principle at some level. The origin of the Pauli principle violation is shown to come from two sources: (i) For the (s,t) class, the two-s-two-t amplitude transforms into the two-s-two-u amplitude under the interchange of two initial-state (or final-state) protons. (ii) For the (u,t) class, the use of an internal emission amplitude determined from the gauge-invariance constraint alone, without imposition of the Pauli principle, causes a problem. The resulting internal emission amplitude can depend upon an electromagnetic factor which is not invariant under the interchange of the two protons.