Fully differential W^′ production and decay at next-to-leading order in QCD

We present the fully differential production and decay of a W^′ boson, with arbitrary vector and axial-vector couplings, to any final state at next-to-leading order in QCD. We demonstrate a complete factorization of couplings at next-to-leading order in both the partial width of the W^′ boson and in the full two-to-two cross section. We provide numerical predictions for the contribution of a W^′ boson to single-top-quark production, and separate results based on whether the mass of the right-handed neutrino ν_R is light enough for the leptonic decay channel to be open. The single-top-quark analysis will allow for an improved direct W^′ mass limit of 525–550 GeV using data from run I of the Fermilab Tevatron. We propose a modified tolerance method for estimating parton distribution function uncertainties in cross sections.