Linear power corrections to single top production and decay at the LHC in the narrow width approximation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how linear power corrections influence polarization effects and kinematic distributions in single top production and decay at the LHC, highlighting implications for top quark mass measurements.

Contribution

It demonstrates that linear power corrections generally affect polarization observables and leptonic distributions, but not the out-of-collision-plane component, informing top quark mass extraction methods.

Findings

Polarization effects are affected by linear power corrections.

Leptonic distributions are influenced by non-perturbative effects.

The out-of-collision-plane distribution remains unaffected by linear power corrections.

Abstract

We consider top quark production and decay in the narrow width approximation and study if the polarisation effects, that manifest themselves in correlations of angular distributions of particles from top quark decays and final state jets in the production sub-process, are affected by linear power corrections. We find that, in general, the answer to this question is affirmative. We also discuss how these non-perturbative corrections affect polarisation observables used to study single top production at the LHC. Finally, we point out that generic kinematic distributions of leptons from top quark decays are affected by linear power corrections, which may have implications for proposals to extract the top quark mass from such leptonic observables. On the other hand, we demonstrate that the distribution of the ``out-of-collision-plane'' component of the positron momentum is free from linear power corrections, making it an interesting candidate for the top quark mass measurement.