Considerations concerning the radiative corrections to muon decay in the Fermi and Standard theories Original Research Article

The FAC, PMS, and BLM optimization methods are applied to the QED corrections to the muon lifetime in the Fermi V-A theory. The FAC and PMS scales are close to me, while the BLM scale nearly coincides with the geometric average √memμ. The optimized expressions are employed to estimate the third order coefficient in the α(mμ) expansion and the theoretical error of the perturbative series. Using arguments based on effective field theory and a simple examination of Feynman diagrams, it is shown that, if contributions of O(αmμ2/MW2) are neglected, the corrections to muon decay in the SM factorize into the QED correction of the Fermi V-A theory and the electroweak amplitude g2/(1 − Δr), both of which are strictly scale-independent. We use the results to clarify how the QED corrections to muon decay and the Fermi constant GF should be used in the SM, and what is the natural choice of scales if running couplings are employed.