Hard photons in W pair production at LEP 2 Original Research Article

The properties of hard photon radiation in W pair production at LEP 2 are studied, with emphasis on the energy loss relevant to the W mass measurement. We use a combination of the exact one-photon matrix element and leading logarithmic structure functions. Defining unobservable, observable and initial-state photons in the phase space, it is shown that neither the one-photon matrix element nor the leading logarithmic structure functions alone give an adequate description of the energy loss due to observable or initial-state photons. An event generator based on these calculations is available.