Next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections to pp → W + W − → 4 leptons at the LHC

We present results of the first calculation of next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections to w-boson pair production at the lhc that fully takes into account leptonic w-boson decays and off-shell effects. employing realistic event selections, we discuss the corrections in situations that are typical for the study of w-boson pairs as a signal process or of higgs-boson decays h → ww∗, to which w-boson pair production represents an irreducible background. in particular, we compare the full off-shell results, obtained treating the w-boson resonances in the complex-mass scheme, to previous results in the so-called double-pole approximation, which is based on an expansion of the loop amplitudes about the w resonance poles. at small and intermediate scales, i.e. in particular in angular and rapidity distributions, the two approaches show the expected agreement at the level of fractions of a percent, but larger differences appear in the tev range. for transverse-momentum distributions, the differences can even exceed the 10% level in the tev range where “background diagrams” with one instead of two resonant w bosons gain in importance because of recoil effects.