Electroweak corrections to top-quark pair production in quark--antiquark annihilation

TL;DR

This work provides a complete calculation of electroweak corrections to QCD-induced top-quark pair production in quark–antiquark annihilation, including box diagrams, and delivers compact analytic expressions for the differential partonic cross section. It combines one-loop virtual corrections and real-emission contributions using dimensional regularization and the Catani–Seymour subtraction method to achieve infrared-finite results. Numerically, the total cross section is only minimally affected by these corrections, whereas differential distributions at high energies exhibit sizable electroweak effects due to Sudakov logarithms. The findings align with prior studies and equip researchers with analytic tools for precision top-quark phenomenology at hadron colliders like the Tevatron and LHC.

Abstract

Top-quark physics plays an important role at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron at Fermilab or the LHC at CERN. Given the planned precision at these colliders, precise theoretical predictions are required. In this paper we present the complete electroweak corrections to QCD-induced top-quark pair production in quark--antiquark annihilation. In particular we provide compact analytic expressions for the differential partonic cross section, which will be useful for further theoretical investigations.

Figures (10)

• Figure 1 : Sample diagrams for the virtual corrections.
• Figure 1 : Sample diagrams for the real corrections.
• Figure 1 : Schematic representation of real corrections to the QCD-box contribution (a) and the EW-box contribution (b).
• Figure 2 : Counterterm diagrams.
• Figure 2 : Amplitude containing the triple gluon vertex. The diagram does not contribute here because of the colour structure.