Okay. So they’re actually talking about the 4l channel, which on theoretical grounds must involve an intermediate heavy (and virtual) boson. I opine that when the boson is virtual, ie there’s no mass peak in the two-lepton spectra, you ought not to say that you’ve observed the ‘2W’ channel, even if that’s the Feynman diagram you draw to explain the observation.
One exception though: In the Quantum Diaries post Dreaded_Anomaly mentioned, I’m fine with them talking about H → W W and H → Z Z decays, because they’re only talking about spin conservation at that one point – no need to mention the end products there. (But that wasn’t what you were talking about, I guess.)
Okay. So they’re actually talking about the 4l channel, which on theoretical grounds must involve an intermediate heavy (and virtual) boson. I opine that when the boson is virtual, ie there’s no mass peak in the two-lepton spectra, you ought not to say that you’ve observed the ‘2W’ channel, even if that’s the Feynman diagram you draw to explain the observation.
I mostly agree with you.
One exception though: In the Quantum Diaries post Dreaded_Anomaly mentioned, I’m fine with them talking about H → W W and H → Z Z decays, because they’re only talking about spin conservation at that one point – no need to mention the end products there. (But that wasn’t what you were talking about, I guess.)