Polarization Effects in Drell-Yan Type Processes h_1+h_2 -> (W,Z,γ*,J/psi)+X

Abstract

The measurement of the angular distribution of leptons from the decay of a $W$, $Z$, $γ^{\ast}$, or $\Jpsi$ produced at high transverse momentum in hadronic collisions provides a detailed test of the production and decay mechanism of the spin one state. In the absence of cuts on the final state leptons, the lepton angular distribution in the lepton pair rest frame is determined by the polarization of the spin one state. At leading order in perturbative QCD the general structure of the decay lepton distribution arising from a $W,Z [γ^{\ast},\Jpsi]$ is controlled by six [four] invariant structure functions. In the presence of cuts, the lepton angular distributions are dominated by kinematic effects rather than polarization effects. We present Monte Carlo studies for Tevatron energies and discuss how polarization effects can be highlighted in the presence of cuts.