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Fully differential W' production and decay at next-to-leading order in QCD

Zack Sullivan

hep-pharXiv:hep-ph/0207290

Abstract

We present the fully differential production and decay of a W' boson, with arbitrary vector and axial-vector couplings, to any final state at next-to-leading order in QCD. We demonstrate a complete factorization of couplings at next-to-leading order in both the partial width of the W' boson, and in the full two-to-two cross section. We provide numerical predictions for the contribution of a W' boson to single-top-quark production, and separate results based on whether the mass of the right-handed neutrino (nuR) is light enough for the leptonic decay channel to be open. The single-top-quark analysis will allow for an improved direct W' mass limit of 525-550 GeV using data from run I of the Fermilab Tevatron. We propose a modified tolerance method for estimating parton distribution function uncertainties in cross sections.

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