One-Loop QCD Mass Effects in the Production of Polarized Bottom and Top Quarks

Abstract

The analytic expressions for the production cross sections of polarized bottom and top quarks in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ annihilation are explicitly derived at the one-loop order of strong interactions. Chirality-violating mass effects will reduce the longitudinal spin polarization for the light quark pairs by an amount of $3\%$, when one properly considers the massless limit for the final quarks. Numerical estimates of longitudinal spin polarization effects in the processes $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to b\bar{b}(g)$ and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to t\bar{t}(g)$ are presented.

Comments: 17 p. (5 figs available upon request), LaTeX, MZ-TH/93-30, RAL/93-81, FTUV/93-46