A POSSIBILITY OF USING LEPTONIC CHANNELS OF THE DECAY OF A W-BOSON FOR DETERMINING ITS WIDTH

The production of W(+/-)-bosons in e+e- collisions and the production of a single W-boson in gammae collisions with the subsequent decay of W-bosons through leptonic channels are considered. Because of the reso nance character of the W-boson propagators in the intermediate state, the leptonic yield reveals a sharp increase near the threshold of W-bo son production. The cross sections that are inclusive with respect to leptons are calculated. For the majority of events involving the produ ction of two leptons, their fractions of energy and the angle between their momenta in the c.m.s. are related by the condition bounding a ce rtain body in the three-dimensional space of these parameters. In the case of the process involving the production of a single W-boson, thes e parameters are the energy fraction and the angle of emission of the lepton relative to the beam axis; in this case, the allowed region is a plane figure. It is shown that the measurement of smearing of lepton distributions because of the resonance character of W-bosons could pr ovide reliable information on the ratio of the total width of a W-boso n to its mass. The effect of radiative corrections on this distributio n is analyzed.