On the top-quark polarization and how to measure it

TL;DR

This paper explores methods to measure top-quark polarization via energy and angular distributions of decay products in electron-positron collisions, providing analytic formulas and numerical estimates for various beam polarizations.

Contribution

It introduces new analytic expressions and numerical estimates for top-quark polarization measurements in $e^+e^-$ collisions, considering different beam polarizations.

Findings

Derived analytic expressions for decay distributions

Provided numerical estimates for different beam polarizations

Showed how to extract polarization information from decay products

Abstract

The top quark is expected to decay as a free particle with definite momentum and polarization. Here we consider the possibilities to obtain information about its polarization through the energy and angular distributions of the b-quarks from the decay of the top-quarks produced in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. Analytic expressions and numerical estimates for different beam polarizations are derived.