Breaking down the entire W boson spin observables from its decay

Abstract

We discuss the eight independent spin observables for the $W$ boson in terms of its vector and tensor polarizations and identify the angular distributions and asymmetries able to separate them in collider experiments. The results are applied to the study of polarized top quark decays and diboson resonances. These novel observables are of great value for disentangling new physics mechanisms in $W$ boson production.

RevTeX 5 pages. v2: Fixed a figure and added a reference. v3: final version to appear in PRD