Top Polarization at a mu+mu- Collider

Abstract

The top quark pairs produced at a polarized muon collider are in a (nearly) pure spin configuration. This result holds for all center-of-mass energies, and is insensitive to the next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections. The decay products of a polarized top quark show strong angular correlations. We describe an interesting interference effect between the left-handed and longitudinally polarized W bosons in top quark decay. This effect is easily observable in the angular distribution of the charged lepton with respect to the beam axis.