Electroweak radiative corrections to W boson production in hadronic collisions

The script O sign (α) electroweak radiative corrections to the process p^(-)p→W^±→ℓ^±ν (ℓ=e,μ) are calculated. The script O sign(α) corrections can be decomposed into separate gauge invariant contributions to the W boson production and decay processes. Factorizing the collinear singularity associated with initial state photon radiation into the parton distribution functions, we find that initial state corrections have a significantly smaller effect than final state radiative corrections. We study in detail the effect of electroweak radiative corrections on a number of interesting observables: the W transverse mass distribution, the W to Z transverse mass ratio, the charge asymmetry of leptons in W→ℓν decays, as well as the W production cross section and the W to Z cross section ratio. We also investigate how experimental lepton identification requirements change the effect of the electroweak corrections.