One-loop QCD interconnection effects in pair production of top quarks

We calculate the one-loop non-factorizable QCD corrections to the production and decay of pairs of top quarks at various collider experiments. These non-factorizable corrections interconnect the different production and decay stages of the off-shell top-pair production processes. This in particular affects the invariant-mass distributions of the off-shell top quarks, resulting in a shift of the maximum of the distorted Breit–Wigner distributions. Although the non-factorizable corrections can be large, the actual shift in the mass as determined from the peak position of the corrected Breit–Wigner line-shape is below 100 MeV.