The Four Polarizations of the $W$ at High Energies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the polarization effects of W bosons at high energies, revealing non-zero interference patterns, gauge invariance considerations, and implications for various charged-current processes.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical framework for evaluating polarized amplitudes, highlighting polarization interference effects and gauge dependence reduction techniques.

Findings

Polarization interference can be significant and negative.

Interference effects are suppressed in high-energy limits for certain exchanges.

A scheme for reducing gauge dependence in polarized scattering predictions is proposed.

Abstract

We investigate polarization-induced interference and off-shell effects in predictions for high-energy, multi-leg processes with intermediate weak bosons carrying fixed helicities. Building on the ``truncated propagator'' paradigm, we carry out our analysis at the level of helicity amplitudes and squared amplitudes. We introduce bookkeeping devices, suitable for covariant and axial gauge choices, that simplify the analytical evaluation of polarized amplitudes, and make power counting of mass-over-energy factors more manifest. Among other results, we show that polarization interference (i) is generally non-zero, even in on-shell limits, (ii) can be negative and comparable to longitudinal contributions, and (iii) is generated by helicity inversion and therefore suppressed (or zero) in high-energy limits for $s$- and $t$-channel exchanges. Connections between gauge invariance and the scalar polarization are also discussed, as is a scheme for reducing gauge dependence in predictions for polarized scattering rates. As case studies, we consider charged-current processes, including $W$(+jets), top quark decay, and neutrino deep-inelastic scattering.