Weak corrections to gluon-induced top-antitop hadro-production

Abstract

We calculate purely weak virtual one-loop corrections to the production cross section of top-antitop pairs at the Large Hadron Collider via the gluon-gluon fusion subprocess. We find very small negative corrections to the total cross section, of order -0.6%, but significantly larger effects to the differential one, particularly in the transverse momentum distribution, of order -5% to -10% (in observable regions). In case of parity-conserving spin-asymmetries of the final state, $\alpha_{\mathrm{S}}^2\alpha_{\mathrm{W}}$ corrections are typically of a few negative percent, with the exception of positive and negative peaks at $+12%$ and -5%, respectively (near where the tree-level predictions change sign), while those arising in parity-violating asymmetries (which are identically zero in QCD) are typically at a level of a few permille.