QCD Corrections to the Charged-Higgs-Boson Decay of a Heavy Top Quark

Abstract

It is shown that up to an over all scale the lowest-order QCD corrections to $t\to H^+b$ and to $t\to W^+b$ are the same in the heavy top limit. Asymptotically, they are given by $-{4\alpha_s\over 3\pi}[{\pi^2\over 3}-{5\over 4}]$, resulting in a reduction in the decay rate by about $9\%$, rather than $6\%$ reported previously in the literature. This is verified explicitly by an analytic calculation. The application of the equivalence theorem to this process is also discussed.