QCD radiation off heavy particles Original Research Article

We study QCD radiation in decay processes involving heavy particles. As input, the first-order gluon emission rate is calculated in a number of reactions, and comparisons of the energy flow patterns show a non-negligible process dependence. To proceed further, the QCD parton shower language offers a convenient approach to include multi-gluon emission effects, and to describe exclusive event properties. An existing shower algorithm is extended to take into account the process-dependent mass, spin and parity effects, as given by the matrix element calculations. This allows an improved description of multiple gluon emission effects off b and t quarks, and also off nonstandard particles like squarks and gluinos. Phenomenological applications are presented for bottom production at LEP, Higgs particle decay to heavy flavours, top production and decay at linear colliders, and some simple supersymmetric processes.