Radiative neutron beta-decay in effective field theory

Abstract

We consider radiative β--decay of the neutron in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory, with an extension including explicit Δdegrees of freedom. We compute the photon energy spectrum as well as the photon polarization; both observables are dominated by the electron bremsstrahlung contribution. Nucleon-structure effects not encoded in the weak coupling constants g_A and g_V are determined at next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion, and enter at the {\cal O}(0.5%)-level, making a sensitive test of the Dirac structure of the weak currents possible.

11 pages, 4 eps figures, misprints fixed, to appear in Phys Lett B