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Updated: Aug 27, 2025

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Pion-Induced Radiative Corrections to Neutron β Decay
Vincenzo Cirigliano1,2, Jordy de Vries3,4, Leendert Hayen5,6
1Los Alamos National Laboratory, Theoretical Division T-2, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
Abstract:
We compute the electromagnetic corrections to neutron β decay using a low-energy hadronic effective field theory. We identify new radiative corrections arising from virtual pions that were missed in previous studies. The largest correction is a percent-level shift in the axial charge of the nucleon proportional to the electromagnetic part of the pion-mass splitting. Smaller corrections, comparable to anticipated experimental precision, impact the β-ν angular correlations and the β asymmetry. We comment on implications of our results for the comparison of the experimentally measured nucleon axial charge with first-principles computations using lattice QCD and on the potential of β decay experiments to constrain beyond-the-standard-model interactions.
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