Gluon Radiation in Top Quark Production and Decay at $e^+e^-$ Colliders

Abstract

We study gluon radiation in top quark production above threshold at high energy $e^+e^-$ colliders. We allow for the top quarks to be off-shell, considering radiation in both the top production and decay processes simultaneously. Our calculation includes all top width effects, spin correlations, and $b$ quark mass effects. We study the effects of gluon radiation on top mass reconstuction and examine the interference between production- and decay-stage radiation, which can be sensitive to the value of the top quark decay width.