The concepts of pole mass and width are extended to unstable fermions in the general framework of parity-nonconserving gauge theories, such as the standard model. In contrast with the conventional on-shell definitions, these concepts are gauge independent and avoid severe unphysical singularities, properties of great importance since most fundamental fermions in nature are unstable particles. General expressions for the unrenormalized and renormalized dressed propagators of unstable fermions and their field-renormalization constants are presented.

• Received 27 December 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.77.116012