https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-11500-3
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
NLO QCD corrections to off-shell top–antitop production with semi-leptonic decays at lepton colliders
1
Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, University of Würzburg, Emil-Hilb-Weg 22, 97074, Würzburg, Germany
2
Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, 79104, Freiburg, Germany
3
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Föhringer Ring 6, 80805, Munich, Germany
Received:
15
February
2023
Accepted:
9
April
2023
Published online:
3
May
2023
The study of top-quark properties will be a central aspect of the physics programme of any future lepton collider. In this article, we investigate the production of top-quark pairs in the semi-leptonic decay channel in 
collisions, whose experimental signature is one charged lepton, jets, and missing energy. We present for the first time fiducial cross sections and differential distributions at next-to-leading-order accuracy in QCD for the full off-shell process. We find that the QCD corrections for the considered process are strongly dependent on the beam energies and range from few per cent up to more than 
(near threshold and above 
). We focus, in particular, on two scenarios: one close to threshold (
), dominated by top-pair production, and one at the TeV scale (
), for which irreducible-background contributions become relevant. An assessment of polarised-beam effects is also provided.
© The Author(s) 2023
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