Abstract:Future hadron collider experiments are expected to record large to huge samples of tt events. The analysis of these data with respect to tt spin-spin correlations requires precise predictions of the production of these quark pairs in a general spin configuration. Therefore we have computed, at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the QCD coupling, the spin density matrices describing tt production by quark antiquark annihilation, which is the dominant production process at the Tevatron. Moreover we have computed the strength of the tt spin correlation at NLO, using various spin quantization axes. Pairs of top and antitop quarks will be produced copiously with the upgraded Fermilab Tevatron collider and in even larger numbers with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, allowing for detailed investigations of the properties of these quarks in the future. For this aim the study of top spin phenomena will play an important role. This is because the top quark, as compared with lighter quarks, is unique in that it is sufficiently short-lived to prevent hadronization effects from diluting the spin-polarisations and spin-spin correlations that were imprinted upon the t andt quarks by their production mechanism. Hence spin-polarization and spin-correlation phenomena will provide valuable information about the interactions of top quarks. An attempt to detect these spin correlations in a small tt dilepton sample collected at the Tevatron was recently reported by the D0 collaboration [1]. Needless to say, in order to interpret future data, the predictions of these spin phenomena should be as precise as possible. Within the Standard Model (SM) top antitop pair production at hadron colliders is determined by QCD. So far the nextto-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections are known for the spin-averaged differential tt cross section [2,3,4,5], while spin correlations were analysed only to leadingorder [6,7,8,9,10,11] in α s . In this letter we report on progress in providing a complete description of these spin effects within QCD at NLO: We have computed, as a first step in this direction, the tt spin density matrices for the parton reactions qq → tt, ttg to order α 3 s . We have also calculated, for these reactions, the degree of the tt spin correlation at NLO for different t andt spin quantization axes.
PACS number(s):At the Tevatron qq annihilation is the dominant process for producing top quark pairs while at the LHC tt production is mainly due to gluon gluon fusion. The tt spin correlations and spin polarisations can be inferred from appropriate angular correlations and distributions of the t andt decay products. In the SM the main top decay modes are t → bW → bqq ′ , bℓν ℓ . Among these final states the charged leptons, or the jets from quarks of weak isospin -1/2 originating from W decay, are most sensitive to the polarisation of the top quarks. Hence to leading order in the QCD coupling one has to treat the two parton reactionswhere f = q, ℓ, ν ℓ . The amplitudes for these two-to six-body processes, with intermediate t...