A numerical test of differential equations for one- and two-loop sunrise diagrams using configuration space techniques

We use configuration space methods to write down one-dimensional integral representations for one- and two-loop sunrise diagrams (also called Bessel moments) which we use to numerically check on the correctness of the second order differential equations for one- and two-loop sunrise diagrams that have recently been discussed in the literature.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, published versio

Local and global duality and the determination of \alpha(M_Z)

This talk presents work concepts and results for the determination of the fine structure constant $\alpha$ at the $Z_0$ mass resonance. The problem consisting of the break-down of global duality for singular integral weights is circumvented by using a polynomial fit which mimics this weight function. This method is conservative in the sense that it is mostly independent of special assumptions. In this context the difference between local and global duality is explained.Comment: 8 pages in LaTeX using aipproc.cls (appended), 2 PostScript figures, talk given at the conference High Energy Physics at the Millennium (MRST'99), Ottawa, Canada, May 10-12, 1999, to appear in the proceeding

Mass, zero mass and ... nophysics

In this paper we demonstrate that massless particles cannot be considered as limiting case of massive particles. Instead, the usual symmetry structure based on semisimple groups like $U(1)$, $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ has to be replaced by less usual solvable groups like the minimal nonabelian group ${\rm sol}_2$. Starting from the proper orthochronous Lorentz group ${\rm Lor}_{1,3}$ we extend Wigner's little group by an additional generator, obtaining the maximal solvable or Borel subgroup ${\rm Bor}_{1,3}$ which is equivalent to the Kronecker sum of two copies of ${\rm sol}_2$, telling something about the helicity of particle and antiparticle states.Comment: 44 pages, no figures, published versio

On the rigidity of back-to-back top quark pairs in e^+e^- annihilation

We consider the effect of gluon radiation on the energy of top/antitop quarks and on the anticollinearity of top-antitop quark pairs produced in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. Our results are presented in terms of the $E_q$-dependence of the $t\bar tg$ cross section and the dependence on the cosine of the opening angle $\theta_{12}$ between top and antitop for a center of mass energy of $\sqrt{q^2}=500 GeV$. We then go on to determine mean values for the top quark's energy as well as its longitudinal and transverse projections, and for the deviation of $\sin\theta_{12}$ and $\cos\theta_{12}$ from the anticollinearity limits $\sin\theta_{12}=0$ and $\cos\theta_{12}=-1$. For a center of mass energy of $500 GeV$ we obtain $=248.22 GeV$, $=247.24 GeV$ and $=4.70 GeV$. Thus, at this energy gluon radiation causes a total average energy loss of 0.71% of the top quark's energy. The average energy loss in the longitudinal direction is 1.06% and the average energy gain in the transverse direction is 1.88%. These percentage figures go up to 3.77%, 5.19% and 6.06%, respectively, at 1000\GeV. For the mean of the acollinearity angle $\bar\theta_{12}=180^0-\theta_{12}$ we obtain $=1.25^0$ at $500 GeV$, the value of which goes up to $4.62^0$ at $1000 GeV$. From an analysis of the transverse momentum of the top we find that the mean transverse momentum of the top stays close to the mean total momentum of the gluon in the energy range from threshold to $1000 GeV$ showing that the gluon momentum has a large mean transverse component in this energy range.Comment: 17 pages, 7 postscript figures, to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Theory of Heavy Baryon Decay

We discuss various topics in the theory of heavy baryon decays. Among these are recent applications of the Relativistic Three Quark Model to semileptonic, nonleptonic, one-pion and one-photon transitions among heavy baryons, new higher order perturbative results on the correlator of two heavy baryon currents and on the semi-inclusive decay $\Lambda_b \to X_c + D_s^{(*)-}$.Comment: 10 pages, invited talk given by J.G. K\"orner at the 3rd International Conference on B Physics and CP Violation (BCONF99), Taipei, Taiwan, 3-7 Dec 1999, to appear in the Proceedings, edited by H.Y. Cheng and W.S. Hou (World Scientific, 2000

Bread and butter physics: NLO electroweak corrections to polarized top quark decays

We report on the status of an ongoing calculation of the NLO electroweak corrections to sequential polarized top quark decays $t(\uparrow) \to X_b +W^+ (\to \ell^+ +\nu_\ell)$.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the XVII Workshop on High Energy Spin Physics DSPIN-17, September 11-15, Dubna (Russia

Symmetries and similarities for spin orientation parameters in e^+ e^- -> ZH, Z\gamma, ZZ at SM thresholds

We consider the spin orentation of the final Z bosons for the processes in the Standard Model. We demonstrate that at the threshold energies of these processes the analytical expressions for the Z boson polarization vectors and alignment tensors coincide (e^+ e^- -> ZH, Z\gamma) or are very similar (e^+ e^- -> ZZ). In addition, we present interesting symmetry properties for the spin orientation parameters.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Analytical results for O(\alpha_s) radiative corrections to e+ e- -> tbar t(pol.) up to a given gluon energy cut

We determine the O(\alpha_s) radiative corrections to polarized top quark pair production in e+ e- -annihilations with a specified gluon energy cut. We write down fully analytical results for the unpolarized and polarized O(\alpha_s) cross sections e+ e- -> tbar t (G) and e+ e- -> tbar t(pol.) (G) including their polar orientation dependence relative to the beam direction. In the soft gluon limit we recover the usual factorizing form known from the soft gluon approximation. In the limit when the gluon energy cut takes its maximum value we recover the totally inclusive unpolarized and polarized cross sections calculated previously. We provide some numerical results on the cut-off dependence of the various polarized and unpolarized cross sections and discuss how the exact results numerically differ from the approximate soft-gluon results.Comment: 49 pages in LaTeX, including 17 encapsulated PostScript figure