Radiative Corrections to $\gamma \gamma \to W^{+}{W}^{-}$ in the Electroweak Standard Model

Abstract

The cross-section for $\gamma \gamma \to W^{+}{W}^{-}$ with arbitrary polarized photons and W bosons is calculated within the electroweak Standard Model including the complete virtual and soft-photonic $\mathcal{O}(\alpha )$ corrections. We present a detailed numerical discussion of the complete radiative corrections and an analytical investigation of the leading corrections. It turns out that in the on-shell renormalization scheme for fixed $M_W$ no leading corrections associated with the running of $\alpha$ or heavy top-quark and Higgs-boson masses occur. The corrections are typically of the order of 10\%. They reach, however, larger values where the lowest-order cross-sections are suppressed.

Comments: 30 pages, compressed uuencoded tex-files + compressed uuencoded ps-figures separately, complete ps-file available via anonymous ftp from ftp://ftp.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/pub/preprint/WUE-ITP-95-002.ps