Why can a particle decay into two photons but not one?

Question

I recently read an old physics news about the Higgs boson where it was observed to decay into 2 photons and I was wondering why it wouldn't have decayed into a single photon with the combined energy of 2 photons?

Answer 1

No massive particle can decay into a single photon.

In its rest frame, a particle with mass $M$ has momentum $p=0$. If it decayed to a single photon, conservation of energy would require the photon energy to be $E=Mc^2$, while conservation of momentum would require the photon to maintain $p=0$. However, photons obey $E=pc$ (which is the special case of $E^2 = (pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2$ for massless particles). It's not possible to satisfy all these constraints at once. Composite particles may emit single photons, but no massive particle may decay to a photon.

Answer 2

The Higgs boson has spin $0$. A photon has spin $1$. The total angular momentum cannot change in the decay, so a Higgs boson cannot decay into a single photon, regardless of the energy. But the total angular momentum of two photons can be zero (because their spins can be oriented in opposite directions), so this decay mode can conserve angular momentum.

As emphasized in a comment, conservation of angular momentum is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Please see rob's answer for clarification about this.