English

Third-order mixed electroweak-QCD corrections to the W-boson mass prediction from the muon lifetime

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-03-09 v1

Abstract

We present the calculation of the so far missing O(α2αs){\cal O}(\alpha^2\alpha_\mathrm{s}) corrections to the quantity Δr\Delta r, which relates the Fermi constant to the W-boson mass, and enables precision predictions of the latter. While the O(α2αs){\cal O}(\alpha^2\alpha_\mathrm{s}) corrections from diagrams with two closed fermion loops are already known, we here focus on the subset with one closed fermion loop, which is a substantially more complex problem. The calculation has been carried out through a combination of analytical and numerical techniques for the three-loop integrals and the on-shell renormalization. The impact of the new corrections is numerically significant, raising the Standard Model prediction for the W-boson mass by more than 3 MeV.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.06571,
  title  = {Third-order mixed electroweak-QCD corrections to the W-boson mass prediction from the muon lifetime},
  author = {Ievgen Dubovyk and Ayres Freitas and Janusz Gluza and Johann Usovitsch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.06571},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

13 pages + 9 pages of references