Logarithmic expansion of electroweak corrections to four-fermion processesin the TeV region - art. no. 073005

Starting from a theoretical representation of the electroweak component of four-fermion neutral current processes that uses as theoretical input the e xperimental measurements at the Z peak, we consider the asymptotic high ene rgy behavior in the standard model at one loop of those gauge-invariant com binations of self-energies, vertices and boxes that contribute all the diff erent observables. We find that the logarithmic contribution due to the ren ormalization group running of the various couplings is numerically overwhel med by single and double logarithmic terms of purely electroweak (Sudakov-t ype) origin, whose separate relative effects grow with energy, reaching the 10% size at about 1 TeV. We then propose a simple "effective" parametrizat ion that aims at describing the various observables in the TeV region, and discuss its validity both beyond and below 1 TeV, in particular in the expe cted energy range of future linear electron-positron (LC) and muon-muon col liders.