With whom did Feynman develop a weak-decay model?

Feynman developed a weak-decay model with Murray Gell-Mann.

Their collaboration addressed beta decay and the broader weak interaction, the force responsible for processes such as neutron decay and many forms of radioactive transformation. The work was part of a rapid reshaping of particle physics after experiments showed that the weak interaction violates parity, meaning nature distinguishes between left-handed and right-handed configurations.

Feynman and Gell-Mann proposed a current-based description that became known as the V−A framework. In it, weak interactions couple to vector and axial-vector currents in a combination that selects left-handed particles and right-handed antiparticles. This helped explain the observed maximal parity violation.

The answer is sometimes confused with Abdus Salam, Sheldon Glashow, and Steven Weinberg, who later unified electromagnetism and the weak interaction into electroweak theory. Feynman and Gell-Mann’s contribution came earlier and focused on the structure of weak interactions and weak decay, rather than the later gauge-theory unification.