Reliability of a high energy one-loop expansion of e+e- --> W+W- in the SM and in the MSSM

Abstract

We compare the logarithmic Sudakov expansions of the process e+e- --> W+W- in the one-loop approximation and in the resummed version, to subleading order accuracy, in the SM case and in a light SUSY scenario for the MSSM. We show that the two expansions are essentially identical below 1 TeV, but differ drastically at higher (2,3 TeV) center of mass energies. Starting from these conclusions, we argue that a complete one-loop calculation in the energy region below 1 TeV does not seem to need extra two-loop corrections, in spite of the relatively large size of the one-loop effects.

15 pages, 1 Encapsulated PostScript figure