Theoretical and phenomenological aspects of vector boson production

Abstract

The production of three gauge bosons in high-energy collisions - in particular in view of a next-linear collider with center of mass energies in the TeV range - offers an unique opportunity to probe the Standard Model (SM) of today's particle physics. In this thesis we pay particular attention to the electroweak sector of the theory. We investigate the gauge structure {i. e. possible deviations from the SM predictions of gauge boson self-interactions manifest e. g. in anomalous quartic gauge boson couplings and Radiation zeros) as well as electroweak radiative corrections in order to improve theoretical predictions for SM processes. Quartic gauge boson couplings can be regarded as a direct window on the sector of electroweak symmetry breaking. We have studied the impact of three such anomalous couplings on the processes e+e(^-) → WWγ, ZZγ and Zγγ at LEP2 and a future linear collider. In certain high-energy scattering processes involving charged particles and the emission of one or more photons, the scattering amplitude vanishes for particular configurations of the final state particles. The fact that gauge symmetry is a vital ingredient for the cancellation to occur means that radiation zeros can be used to probe physics beyond the standard model. For example anomalous electroweak gauge boson couplings destroy the delicate cancellation necessary for the zero to occur. We have studied the process qq → WWγ. To match the expected experimental precision at future linear colliders, improved theoretical predictions beyond next-to-leading order are required. By choosing an appropriate gauge, we have developed a formalism to calculate such corrections for arbitrary electroweak processes. As an example we consider here the processes e(^+)e → f f and e(^+)e(^-) → W(^+)(_T)W(^-)(_T), W(^+)(_L)W(^-)(_L) and study the perturbative structure of the electroweak Sudakov logarithms by means of an explicit two-loop calculation. In this way we investigate how the Standard Model, with its mass gap between the photon and Z boson in the neutral sector, compares to unbroken theories like QED and QCD. We observe that the two-loop corrections are consistent with an exponentiation of the one-loop corrections. In this sense the Standard Model behaves like an unbroken theory at high energies. [brace not closed]