Precise predictions for same-sign W-boson scattering at the LHC.

Vector-boson scattering processes are of great importance for the current run-II and future runs of the Large Hadron Collider. The presence of triple and quartic gauge couplings in the process gives access to the gauge sector of the Standard Model (SM) and possible new-physics contributions there. To test any new-physics hypothesis, sound knowledge of the SM contributions is necessary, with a precision which at least matches the experimental uncertainties of existing and forthcoming measurements. In this article we present a detailed study of the vector-boson scattering process with two positively-charged leptons and missing transverse momentum in the final state. In particular, we first carry out a systematic comparison of the various approximations that are usually performed for this kind of process against the complete calculation, at LO and NLO QCD accuracy. Such a study is performed both in the usual fiducial region used by experimental collaborations and in a more inclusive phase space, where the differences among the various approximations lead to more sizeable effects. Afterwards, we turn to predictions matched to parton showers, at LO and NLO: we show that on the one hand, the inclusion of NLO QCD corrections leads to more stable predictions, but on the other hand the details of the matching and of the parton-shower programs cause differences which are considerably larger than those observed at fixed order, even in the experimental fiducial region. We conclude with recommendations for experimental studies of vector-boson scattering processes.

Techniques for the treatment of IR divergences in decay processes at NLO and application to the top-quark decay.

We present the extension of two general algorithms for the treatment of infrared singularities arising in electroweak corrections to decay processes at next-to-leading order: the dipole subtraction formalism and the one-cutoff slicing method. The former is extended to the case of decay kinematics which has not been considered in the literature so far. The latter is generalised to production and decay processes with more than two charged particles, where new "surface" terms arise. Arbitrary patterns of massive and massless external particles are considered, including the treatment of infrared singularities in dimensional or mass regularisation. As an application of the two techniques we present the calculation of the next-to-leading order QCD and electroweak corrections to the top-quark decay width including all off-shell and decay effects of intermediate [Formula: see text] bosons. The result, e.g., represents a building block of a future calculation of NLO electroweak effects to off-shell top-quark pair ([Formula: see text]) production. Moreover, this calculation can serve as the first step towards an event generator for top-quark decays at next-to-leading order accuracy, which can be used to attach top-quark decays to complicated many-particle top-quark processes, such as for [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text].