W Pair Production at the LHC - I. Virtual O(alpha_s^2) Corrections in the High Energy Limit

Abstract

We present the result for the two-loop and the one-loop squared virtual QCD corrections to the W boson pair production in the quark-anti-quark-annihilation channel in the limit where all kinematical invariants are large compared to the mass of the W boson. The infrared pole structure is in agreement with the prediction of Catani's general formalism for the singularities of two loop amplitudes.

Comments: 22 pages, 1 figure, references added, typos corrected, final version as published