In particle physics, Fermi's interaction (also the Fermi theory of beta decay or the Fermi four-fermion interaction) is an … See more

Fermi first submitted his "tentative" theory of beta decay to the prestigious science journal Nature, which rejected it "because it contained speculations too remote from reality to be of interest to the reader." It has been argue… See more

The theory deals with three types of particles presumed to be in direct interaction: initially a “heavy particle” in the “neutron state” (), which then transitions into its “proton state” () with the emission of an electro… See more

Shortly after Fermi's paper appeared, Werner Heisenberg noted in a letter to Wolfgang Pauli that the emission and absorption of neutrinos and electrons in the nucleus should, at the second order of perturbatio… See more

Fermi's four-fermion theory describes the weak interaction remarkably well. Unfortunately, the calculated cross-section, or probability of interaction, grows as the square of the energy . Since this cross section gro… See more

The most precise experimental determination of the Fermi constant comes from measurements of the muon lifetime, which is inversely proportional to the square of GF (when neglecting the muon mass again… See more