Virtual graviton exchanges at the Z-pole in large extra dimensions

Abstract

In the framework of quantum gravity propagating in large extra dimensions, the effects of virtual Kaluza-Klein gravitons on the imaginary part of the amplitude of the process e+ e- --> f f-bar are analyzed at the Z-pole. Notably, the interference of the almost-continuous spectrum of the KK gravitons with the standard model resonant amplitude is finite and predictable in terms of the fundamental D-dimensional Plank scale M_D. We find that, while the virtual-gravitons effect on total cross sections vanishes at tree-level, both angular and polarization asymmetries are modified by terms whose relative effect is at most of order 10^(-4) for M_D > 1 TeV. Possible shifts in the M_Z, due to changes in the Breit-Wigner line shape are also discussed.