Radiative corrections to off-shell gauge-boson pair production

In recent years we have grown increasingly accustomed to the great success of the Standard Model (SM) of electroweak interactions. However, up to now only a relatively restricted sector of the SM has been checked. The Yang–Mills character of the gauge-boson self-interactions and the Higgs mechanism of mass generation still await conclusive confirmation. This leaves ample of room for interesting physics at upcoming collider experiments, either within or outside the SM. If any physics beyond the SM exists, it will reveal itself in the production of new particles (direct signals) or in deviations in the interactions between the SM particles (indirect signals). Reactions that involve the production and subsequent decay of pairs of unstable gauge bosons (e+e− → V1V2 → 4f+nγ) constitute powerful search tools for such indirect signals. In this context, the limelight is presently on the production of pairs of W bosons at LEP2, the second stage of the LEP program. With energies above the nominal W-pair-production threshold,