Six-Fermion Calculation of Intermediate-mass Higgs Boson Production at Future e+e−e^+ e^- Colliders

The production of an intermediate-mass Higgs boson in processes of the kind $e^+ e^- \to 6$ fermions at the energies of future linear colliders is studied. The recently developed and fully automatic algorithm/code ALPHA is used to compute the tree-level scattering amplitudes for the reactions $e^+ e^- \to \mu^+ \mu^- \tau^- \bar\nu_{\tau} u \bar d, \mu^+ \mu^- e^- \bar\nu_{e} u \bar d$. The code has been interfaced with the Monte Carlo program HIGGSPV/WWGENPV, properly adapted to 6-fermion production, in order to provide realistic results, both in the form of cross sections and event samples at the partonic level. Phenomenological results, that incorporate the effects of initial-state radiation and beamstrahlung, are shown and commented, emphasizing the potentials of full six-fermion calculations for precise background evaluation as well as for detailed studies of the fundamental properties of the Higgs particle.Comment: 31 pages, LaTeX, 15 eps low-resolution figures include

Multi-photon corrections to W boson mass determination at hadron colliders

The impact of higher-order final-state photonic corrections on the precise determination of the W-boson mass at the Tevatron and LHC colliders is evaluated. The W-mass shift from a fit to the transverse mass distribution is found to be about 10 MeV in the W --> mu nu channel and a few MeV in the W --> e nu channel. The calculation, which is implemented in the Monte Carlo event generator HORACE for data analysis, can contribute to reduce the uncertainty associated to the W mass measurement at present and future hadron collider experiments.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of International Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics (EPS 2003), Aachen, Germany, 17-23 Jul 200

Radiative four-fermion processes at LEP2

The production of four fermions plus a visible photon in electron-positron collisions is analyzed, with particular emphasis on the LEP2 energy range. The study is based on the calculation of exact matrix elements, including the effect of fermion masses. In the light of the present measurements performed at LEP, triple and quartic anomalous gauge couplings are taken into account. Due to the presence of a visible photon in the final state, particular attention is paid to the treatment of higher-order QED corrections. Explicit results for integrated cross sections and differential distributions are shown and commented. The features of the Monte Carlo program WRAP, used to perform the calculation and available for experimental analysis, are described.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, 6 tables, 13 figures. Numerical results added, version to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Higher-order QED corrections to single-W production in electron-positron collisions

Four-fermion processes with a particle lost in the beam pipe are studied at LEP to perform precision tests of the electroweak theory. Leading higher-order QED corrections to such processes are analyzed within the framework of the Structure Functions (SF) approach. The energy scale entering the QED SF is determined by inspection of the soft and collinear limit of the O(alpha) radiative corrections to the four-fermion final states, paying particular attention to the process of single-W production. Numerical predictions are shown in realistic situations for LEP experiments and compared with existing results. A Monte Carlo event generator, including exact tree-level matrix elements, vacuum polarization, higher-order leading QED corrections and anomalous trilinear gauge couplings, is presented.Comment: LaTeX (using elsart), 21 pages, 8 .ps figure

A note on drastic product logic

The drastic product $*_D$ is known to be the smallest $t$-norm, since $x *_D y = 0$ whenever $x, y < 1$. This $t$-norm is not left-continuous, and hence it does not admit a residuum. So, there are no drastic product $t$-norm based many-valued logics, in the sense of [EG01]. However, if we renounce standard completeness, we can study the logic whose semantics is provided by those MTL chains whose monoidal operation is the drastic product. This logic is called ${\rm S}_{3}{\rm MTL}$ in [NOG06]. In this note we justify the study of this logic, which we rechristen DP (for drastic product), by means of some interesting properties relating DP and its algebraic semantics to a weakened law of excluded middle, to the $\Delta$ projection operator and to discriminator varieties. We shall show that the category of finite DP-algebras is dually equivalent to a category whose objects are multisets of finite chains. This duality allows us to classify all axiomatic extensions of DP, and to compute the free finitely generated DP-algebras.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Light Pair Correction to Bhabha Scattering at Small Angle

This work deals with the computation of electron pair correction to small angle Bhabha scattering, in order to contribute to the improvement of luminometry precision at LEP/SLC below 0.1% theoretical accuracy. The exact QED four-fermion matrix element for $e^+e^-\to e^+e^-e^+e^-$, including all diagrams and mass terms, is computed and different Feynman graph topologies are studied to quantify the error of approximate calculations present in the literature. Several numerical results, obtained by a Monte Carlo program with full matrix element, initial-state radiation via collinear structure functions, and realistic event selections, are shown and critically compared with the existing ones. The present calculation, together with recent progress in the sector of $O(\alpha^2)$ purely photonic corrections, contributes to achieve a total theoretical error in luminometry at the 0.05% level, close to the current experimental precision and important in view of the final analysis of the electroweak precision data.Comment: LaTeX2e, 28 pages, 8 figures include