Use of W-boson longitudinal–transverse interference in top quark spin-correlation functions: II

This continuation of the derivation of general beam-referenced stage-two spin-correlation functions is for the analysis of top–antitop pair-production at the Tevatron and at the Large Hadron Collider. Both the gluon-production and the quark-production contributions are included for the charged-lepton-plus-jets reaction pp or . There is a simple 4-angle beam-referenced spin-correlation function for determination of the relative sign of or for measurement of a possible non-trivial phase between the two dominant helicity amplitudes for the decay mode. There is an analogous function and tests for decay. This signature requires use of the energy of the hadronically decaying W-boson, or the kinematically equivalent cosine of the polar angle of emission in the antitop (top) decay frame. Spinors and their outer-products are constructed so that the helicity-amplitude phase convention of Jacob and Wick can be used throughout for the fixing of the signs associated with this large W-boson longitudinal–transverse interference effect.