  This paper revives the controversial debate that has arisen over the last two
decades about the possibility that the electromagnetic field affects the
lifetime or the decay rate of an unstable particle. In this research, we show,
by performing analytical calculations and extracting numerical results, that
the pion lifetime can be changed notably by inserting the decaying pion into an
electromagnetic field only if the number of photons transferred between the
decaying system and the laser field does not reach the well-known sum-rule. The
influence of the laser parameters on the decay rate and branching ratio is also
discussed. The surprising result obtained for the pion lifetime is referred to
as the well-known quantum Zeno effect.
