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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of the most important quantities for testing the Standard Model (SM) or its extensions is the relation between the massive gauge boson masses, $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{Z}`$, in terms of the Fermi constant, $`G_\mu `$, and the fine structure constant, $`\alpha `$. This relation can be derived from muon decay, where the Fermi constant enters the muon lifetime, $`\tau _\mu `$, via the expression

$$\tau _\mu ^1=\frac{G_\mu ^2m_\mu ^5}{192\pi ^3}F\left(\frac{m_\mathrm{e}^2}{m_\mu ^2}\right)\left(1+\frac{3}{5}\frac{m_\mu ^2}{M_\mathrm{W}^2}\right)\left(1+\mathrm{\Delta }q\right),$$
(1)
with $`F(x)=18x12x^2\mathrm{ln}x+8x^3x^4`$. By convention, this defining equation is supplemented with the QED corrections within the Fermi Model, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$. Results for $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ have been available for a long time at the one-loop  and, more recently, at the two-loop level . Commonly, tree-level W propagator effects giving rise to the (numerically insignificant) term $`3m_\mu ^2/(5M_\mathrm{W}^2)`$ in eq. (1) are also included in the definition of $`G_\mu `$, although they are not part of the Fermi Model prediction.

Comparing the prediction for the muon lifetime within the SM with eq. (1) yields the relation

$$M_\mathrm{W}^2\left(1\frac{M_\mathrm{W}^2}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}\right)=\frac{\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{2}G_\mu }\left(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r\right),$$
(2)
where the radiative corrections are summarised in the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ . This relation allows a prediction of $`M_\mathrm{W}`$, to be tested against the experimental result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$. The current accuracy of the measurement of the W-boson mass, $`M_\mathrm{W}^{\mathrm{exp}}=80.451\pm 0.033`$ GeV , will be further improved in the final LEP analysis and Tevatron Run II , each with an error of $`\delta M_\mathrm{W}30`$ MeV. At the LHC, an error of $`\delta M_\mathrm{W}15`$ MeV can be expected , while a high-luminosity linear collider running in a low-energy mode at the $`\mathrm{W}^+\mathrm{W}^{}`$ threshold could reach a reduction of the experimental error down to $`\delta M_\mathrm{W}6`$ MeV . This offers the prospect for highly sensitive tests of the electroweak theory , provided that the accuracy of the theoretical prediction matches the experimental precision.

The quantum correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ has been under extensive theoretical study over the last two decades. The one-loop result  involves large fermionic contributions from the shift in the fine structure constant due to light fermions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \mathrm{log}m_f`$, and from the leading contribution to the $`\rho `$ parameter, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$, which is quadratically dependent on the top-quark mass $`m_\mathrm{t}`$, resulting from the top-bottom mass splitting ,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}=\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \frac{c_\mathrm{W}^2}{s_\mathrm{W}^2}\mathrm{\Delta }\rho +\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{rem}}(M_\mathrm{H}),$$
(3)
with $`s_\mathrm{W}^2=1M_\mathrm{W}^2/M_\mathrm{Z}^2`$. The remainder part $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{rem}}`$ contains in particular the dependence on the Higgs-boson mass, $`M_\mathrm{H}`$.

Beyond the one-loop order, resummations of the leading one-loop contributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$ have been derived . They correctly take into account the terms of the form $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\rho )^2`$, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }\rho )`$, and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{rem}})`$ at the two-loop level and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )^n`$ to all orders.

Beyond the two-loop order, complete results for the pure fermion-loop corrections (i.e. contributions containing $`n`$ fermion loops at $`n`$-loop order) are known up to four-loop order . These results also include the contributions arising from resummation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$. Recently, the leading three-loop contributions to the $`\rho `$ parameter of $`𝒪(G_\mu ^3m_\mathrm{t}^6)`$ and $`𝒪(G_\mu ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s}m_\mathrm{t}^4)`$ have been computed in the limit of vanishing Higgs boson mass , but were found to have small impact on the prediction of the W mass.

Higher order QCD corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ have been calculated at $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s})`$  and for the top-bottom contributions at $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)`$ . The $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)`$ contributions with light quarks in the loops can be derived from the formulae (29) – (31) in  and turn out to be completely negligible. First results for the electroweak two-loop contributions have been obtained using asymptotic expansions for large Higgs  and top-quark masses . Concerning the expansion in $`m_\mathrm{t}`$, the formally leading term of $`𝒪(G_\mu ^2m_\mathrm{t}^4)`$  and the next-to-leading term of $`𝒪(G_\mu ^2m_\mathrm{t}^2M_\mathrm{Z}^2)`$  were found to be numerically significant for the prediction of the W mass. Since both contributions turned out to be of similar magnitude and of same sign, a more complete calculation of electroweak two-loop corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ without using expansions is desirable.

As a first step in this direction, exact results have been obtained for the Higgs-mass dependence (e.g. the quantity $`M_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{subtr}}(M_\mathrm{H})M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H})M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H}=65\mathrm{GeV}))`$ of the fermionic two-loop corrections to the precision observables . They were shown to agree well with the previous results of the top-quark mass expansion .

For the bosonic two-loop corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$, the complete result is not available up to now. However, in Ref.  the effect of the bosonic terms up to $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ on the relation between the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ and on-shell definition of the gauge boson masses has been studied. For this purpose the corresponding two-loop self-energies have been evaluated in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme using large-mass expansions.

This paper discusses the exact computation of all fermionic two-loop corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ which has been presented recently . These include all two-loop diagrams contributing to the muon decay amplitude and containing at least one closed fermion loop (except the pure QED corrections already contained in the Fermi Model result, see eq. (1)). Some typical examples are shown in Fig. 1. No expansion in the top-quark mass or the Higgs boson mass is made, so that the full dependence on $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ as well as the complete light-fermion contributions at two-loop order are contained. Previously, corrections from light fermions have only been taken into account via resummations of the one-loop light-fermion contribution (the two-loop light-fermion contributions have been calculated within the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme in Ref. ).

The result of  has been included in the Standard Model fits and the indirect derivation of constraints on the Higgs boson mass performed by the LEP Electroweak Working Group .

As a further step towards a complete two-loop result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$, a partial result is presented for the purely bosonic electroweak two-loop corrections which yields the Higgs-mass dependence of these terms.

The paper is organised as follows. Sections 24 enlarge on the methods which were employed for the calculation of the fermionic two-loop corrections. While section 2 presents an overview over the techniques, the renormalisation procedure is explained in section 3 and the extraction of the QED corrections, which are already contained in the Fermi Model, is described in section 4. A discussion of the numerical results and remaining theoretical uncertainties due to unknown higher orders can be found in sections 5 and 6, respectively. In section 7 the Higgs-mass dependence of the bosonic two-loop corrections is studied. Before concluding, an outlook to the situation for future colliders is given in section 8.

## 2 Outline of the two-loop calculation

This section presents an overview over the main features of the calculation.

Since the definition of the Fermi coupling constant according to eq. (1) contains QED corrections in the Fermi Model summarised in the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$, the corresponding contributions have to be identified and extracted from the Standard Model computation of muon decay in order to arrive at the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$. As shown in section 4 below, all IR-divergent loop contributions in our calculation are already contained in $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$, contributing to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ are IR-finite. As a consequence, after extraction of the Fermi Model contributions, it is possible to neglect the masses and momenta of the external particles, thereby reducing the generic diagrams contributing to the muon-decay amplitude to vacuum diagrams.

For the renormalisation the on-shell scheme is used throughout. It entails, in addition, the evaluation of two-loop two-point functions with non-zero external momentum, which is technically more involved. However, it should be noted that the evaluation of this type of integrals is generally necessary in all renormalisation schemes if the result shall be related to the physical gauge boson masses. The details of the renormalisation procedure are given in section 3.

Since the calculation involves the computation of more than thousand diagrams, it is convenient to employ computer-algebra tools. The generation of diagrams and Feynman amplitudes, including the counterterm contributions, was performed with the package FeynArts . The program TwoCalc  was applied for the algebraic evaluation of these amplitudes, which were reduced, by means of two-loop tensor-integral decompositions, to a set of standard scalar integrals. Throughout the calculation, a general $`R_\xi `$ gauge was used, and the gauge-parameter independence of the final result was checked algebraically. For the evaluation of the scalar one-loop integrals and the two-loop vacuum integrals we have used analytical results as given in Refs. , while the two-loop two-point integrals with non-vanishing external momentum have been evaluated numerically using one-dimensional integral representations with elementary functions . These allow a fast and stable calculation of the integrals for general mass configurations.

Since we use Dimensional Regularisation  in our calculation, it is necessary to investigate the treatment of the Dirac algebra involving $`\gamma _5`$. It is known that a naively anti-commuting $`\gamma _5`$ respects all Ward identities of the Standard Model . However, while it can safely be applied for all two-loop two-point contributions (for a discussion, see e.g. Ref. ) and most of the two-loop vertex- and box-type diagrams, it would yield an incorrect result for vertex diagrams containing a triangle subgraph (see Fig. 2). This originates from an inconsistent treatment of the trace of $`\gamma _5`$ together with four Dirac matrices, which in four dimensions is given by $`\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\gamma _5\gamma ^\mu \gamma ^\nu \gamma ^\rho \gamma ^\sigma \right\}=4iϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }`$, while this trace would vanish when using the naively anti-commuting $`\gamma _5`$ in $`D`$ dimensions.

A mathematically consistent definition of $`\gamma _5`$ in $`D`$ dimensions  would require the introduction of additional counterterms to restore the Ward identities, which is a very tedious procedure at the two-loop level. For recent discussions on this topic, see Refs. .

In order to calculate the class of diagrams in Fig. 2, we have first evaluated the triangle subgraph with a consistent $`\gamma _5`$ according to Refs.  (here we made use of the package Tracer  for checking). After adding appropriate counterterms to restore the Ward identities, the result differs from the result obtained using a naively anti-commuting $`\gamma _5`$ only in terms proportional to the totally antisymmetric tensor $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }`$, which are finite for $`D4`$. Inserting this difference term into the two-loop diagrams, it turns out that the second loop only yields a finite contribution, so that it can be evaluated in four dimensions without further complications. After contraction with the external fermion line in the vertex diagrams, a non-zero contribution to the result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is obtained from this term.

## 3 On-shell Renormalisation

### 3.1 One-loop renormalisation

In the on-shell renormalisation scheme the mass parameters and coupling constants are related to physical observables. The gauge bosons of the U(1) and SU(2)L group, $`B_\mu ,W_\mu ^{1,2,3}`$ are conveniently expressed in terms of their mass eigenstates,

$`W_\mu ^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(W_\mu ^1iW_\mu ^2\right),`$ (4)
$`\left(\begin{array}{c}Z_\mu \\ A_\mu \end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill c_\mathrm{W}& \hfill s_\mathrm{W}\\ \hfill s_\mathrm{W}& \hfill c_\mathrm{W}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}W_\mu ^3\\ B_\mu \end{array}\right),`$ (11)
where $`W_\mu ^\pm ,Z_\mu `$ denote the fields of the massive vector bosons $`W,Z`$ with masses $`M_\mathrm{W},M_\mathrm{Z}`$, $`A_\mu `$ represents the massless photon field, and the weak mixing angle enters in the combination

$$c_\mathrm{W}=\mathrm{cos}\theta _\mathrm{W}=M_\mathrm{W}/M_\mathrm{Z},s_\mathrm{W}=\mathrm{sin}\theta _\mathrm{W}=\sqrt{1M_\mathrm{W}^2/M_\mathrm{Z}^2}.$$
(12)
The eigenstates of the Higgs doublet are the physical Higgs field $`H`$ with mass $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ and the neutral and charged Goldstone bosons $`\chi ,\varphi ^\pm `$. We neglect mixing between the fermion generations throughout.

In the following the conventions of  are adopted. In our approach all physical fields and masses as well as the electromagnetic coupling $`e`$ are renormalised:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill e_0& =& Z_ee,\hfill & & & & \\ \hfill M_{\mathrm{W}}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}& =& M_\mathrm{W}^2+\delta M_\mathrm{W}^2,\hfill & & \hfill M_{\mathrm{Z}}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}& =& M_\mathrm{Z}^2+\delta M_\mathrm{Z}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill M_{\mathrm{H}}^{2}{}_{0}{}^{}& =& M_\mathrm{H}^2+\delta M_\mathrm{H}^2,\hfill & & \hfill m_{f}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}& =& m_f+\delta m_f,\hfill \\ \hfill W_0^\pm & =& (Z^\mathrm{W})^{1/2}W^\pm ,\hfill & & \hfill Z_0& =& (Z^{\mathrm{ZZ}})^{1/2}Z+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }A,\hfill \\ & & & & \hfill A_0& =& \frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}Z+(Z^{\gamma \gamma })^{1/2}A,\hfill \\ \hfill H_0& =& (Z^\mathrm{H})^{1/2}H,\hfill & & \hfill f_0^\mathrm{L}& =& (Z^{f\mathrm{L}})^{1/2}f^\mathrm{L}(f=e,\nu _e,\mathrm{}),\hfill \\ & & & & \hfill f_0^\mathrm{R}& =& (Z^{f\mathrm{R}})^{1/2}f^\mathrm{R}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
Here the index $`0`$ indicates the bare quantities. The renormalisation constants for the masses, $`\delta M_\mathrm{X},\delta m_f`$, the fields, $`Z^\mathrm{X}=1+\delta Z^\mathrm{X}`$, and the charge, $`Z_e=1+\delta Z_e`$, are fixed by on-shell renormalisation conditions.

The physical squared masses $`M_\mathrm{X}^2`$ are defined as the real part of the poles $`_\mathrm{X}^2`$ of the propagators $`D^\mathrm{X}`$. The field renormalisation constants are determined by demanding unity residues of the poles. This ensures that all Green’s functions are finite and external wave function corrections need not be taken into account. With the index T denoting the transverse part of the vector boson propagators, the on-shell renormalisation conditions read

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}\hfill \left(D_\mathrm{T}^\mathrm{W}\right)^1(& _\mathrm{W}^2)=0,\hfill & & \hfill Re\left\{i\frac{}{k^2}\left(D_\mathrm{T}^\mathrm{W}\right)^1(k^2)|_{k^2=_\mathrm{W}^2}\right\}& =& 1,\hfill \\ \hfill \left(D_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}\right)^1(& _\mathrm{Z}^2)=0,\hfill & & \hfill Re\left\{i\frac{}{k^2}\left(D_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}\right)^1(k^2)|_{k^2=_\mathrm{Z}^2}\right\}& =& 1,\hfill \\ \hfill \left(D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\right)^1(_\mathrm{Z}^2)=0,& \left(D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\right)^1(0)=0,\hfill & & \hfill Re\left\{i\frac{}{k^2}\left(D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \gamma }\right)^1(k^2)|_{k^2=0}\right\}& =& 1,\hfill \\ \hfill \left(D^\mathrm{H}\right)^1(& _\mathrm{H}^2)=0,\hfill & & \hfill Re\left\{i\frac{}{k^2}\left(D^\mathrm{H}\right)^1(k^2)|_{k^2=_\mathrm{H}^2}\right\}& =& 1,\hfill \\ \hfill \left(D^f\right)^1(& p)|_{p^2=_f^2}=0,\hfill & & \hfill Re\left\{i\frac{}{p/}\left(D^f\right)^1(p)|_{p^2=_f^2}\right\}& =& 1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(14)
The propagators are related to the one-particle-irreducible two-point functions $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ by

$`\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill D_\mathrm{T}^\mathrm{W}& =& \hfill \left(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^\mathrm{W}\right)^1,\\ \hfill D^\mathrm{H}& =& \hfill \left(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^\mathrm{H}\right)^1,\end{array}`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}D_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}& D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\\ D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}& D_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \gamma }\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}& \widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}& \widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \gamma }\end{array}\right)^1,`$ (21)
$$D^f=\left(\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^f\right)^1=\left(p/\omega _{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{L}^f+p/\omega _+\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{R}^f+m_f\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{S}^f\right)^1.$$
(22)
Here $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R},\mathrm{S}}^f`$ represent the left-/right-handed and scalar component of the fermion two-point functions, respectively. The two-point functions can be separated into a Born contribution and the self-energies,

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{T}^{ab}(k^2)=i\left[(k^2M_a^2)\delta _{ab}+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{T}^{ab}(k^2)\right],$$
(23)
$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}^f(p^2)=i\left[1+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}^f(p^2)\right],\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mathrm{S}^f(p^2)=i\left[1+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{S}^f(p^2)\right].$$
(24)
The hat indicates renormalised quantities, i. e. $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\mathrm{\Sigma }+\text{counterterms}`$.

In addition to the aforementioned renormalisation conditions, one has the freedom to renormalise the Higgs tadpole $`t`$. Here the condition

$$t+\delta t=0$$
(25)
is applied, which requires that all tadpole contributions are exactly cancelled by the counterterms $`\delta t`$, so that no tadpoles need to be taken into account in the actual calculation.

Using the renormalisation conditions eq. (14) one obtains for the renormalisation constants in eq. (13) at the one-loop level

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill \delta M_\mathrm{W}^2& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\},\hfill & & \hfill \delta Z^\mathrm{W}& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{W}^/}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\},\hfill \\ \hfill \delta M_\mathrm{Z}^2& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\},\hfill & & \hfill \delta Z^{\mathrm{ZZ}}& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{ZZ}^/}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\},\hfill \\ & & & & \hfill \delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}& =& 2Re\left\{\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}\right\},\hfill \\ & & & & \hfill \delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }& =& 2\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}(0)}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2},\hfill \\ & & & & \hfill \delta Z^{\gamma \gamma }& =& \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{T}^{\gamma \gamma ^/}(0),\hfill \\ \hfill \delta M_\mathrm{H}^2& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{H}(M_\mathrm{H}^2)\right\},\hfill & & \hfill \delta Z^\mathrm{H}& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{H}^/}(M_\mathrm{H}^2)\right\},\hfill \end{array}$$
(26)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \delta m_f& =& \frac{m_f}{2}Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{L}^f(m_f^2)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{R}^f(m_f^2)+2\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{R}^f(m_f^2)\right\},\hfill \\ \hfill \delta Z^{fL}& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{L}^f(m_f^2)\right\}m_f^2Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{L}^{f^/}(m_f^2)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{R}^{f^/}(m_f^2)+2\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{S}^{f^/}(m_f^2)\right\},\hfill \\ \hfill \delta Z^{fR}& =& Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{R}^f(m_f^2)\right\}m_f^2Re\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{L}^{f^/}(m_f^2)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{R}^{f^/}(m_f^2)+2\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{S}^{f^/}(m_f^2)\right\},\hfill \end{array}$$
(27)
with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^^/(k^2)`$ indicating the derivative of the self-energy with respect to $`k^2`$.

For the charge renormalisation an additional condition is required. Usually it is fixed by demanding that the electric charge $`e`$ coincides with the coupling of the electromagnetic vertex in the Thomson limit,

$$\overline{u}(p)\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\mu ^{ee\gamma }(p,p)u(p)|_{p^2=m_e^2}=ie\overline{u}(p)\gamma _\mu u(p).$$
(28)
Employing the U(1) Ward identity this yields at one-loop order

$$\delta Z_e=\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \gamma }\frac{s_\mathrm{W}}{2c_\mathrm{W}}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }.$$
(29)
The weak mixing angle is a derived quantity, expressed in terms of the gauge boson masses, see eq. (12). Thus the renormalisation of $`M_\mathrm{W},M_\mathrm{Z}`$ also determines the counterterm $`\delta s_\mathrm{W}`$ for $`s_\mathrm{W}`$ . At one-loop order one obtains

$$\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}=\frac{c_\mathrm{W}^2}{2s_\mathrm{W}^2}\left[\frac{\delta M_\mathrm{Z}^2}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}\frac{\delta M_\mathrm{W}^2}{M_\mathrm{W}^2}\right].$$
(30)
From two-loop order on, a one-loop sub-renormalisation is necessary for the Faddeev-Popov ghost sector, which is associated with the gauge-fixing part. It is possible to keep the gauge-fixing part invariant under renormalisation. For technical convenience, we arrange for this by a renormalisation of the gauge parameters in such a way that it precisely cancels the renormalisation of the parameters and fields in the gauge-fixing Lagrangian.111In another approach to avoid counterterms emerging from the gauge-fixing sector, the gauge-fixing part could alternatively be added to the Lagrangian only after renormalisation. In this case the counterterms to the ghost sector arise only from the renormalisation of the gauge transformations and not from the gauge-fixing functions $`F^\mathrm{V}`$.  To this end, we start with the following, rather general form of the bare gauge-fixing term:

$`_{\mathrm{gf}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left((F^\gamma )^2+(F^\mathrm{Z})^2+F^+F^{}+F^{}F^+\right),`$ (31)
$`F^\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`\left(\xi _1^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}_\mu A^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}}{2}}_\mu Z^\mu ,`$ (32)
$`F^\mathrm{Z}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\xi _1^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}_\mu Z^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }}{2}}_\mu A^\mu \left(\xi _2^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}M_\mathrm{Z}\chi ,`$ (33)
$`F^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\left(\xi _1^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}_\mu W^{\pm \mu }i\left(\xi _2^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}M_\mathrm{W}\varphi ^\pm ,`$ (34)
allowing two different bare gauge parameters for both W and Z, $`\xi _1^{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}}`$ and $`\xi _2^{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}}`$, and also mixing gauge parameters, $`\xi ^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}`$ and $`\xi ^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }`$. The renormalised parameters shall comply with the $`R_\xi `$ gauge, providing one free gauge parameter for each gauge boson, $`\xi ^\gamma ,\xi ^\mathrm{Z},\xi ^\mathrm{W}`$. With the following renormalisation prescription

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}& 0\\ 0& \left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\left(\xi _1^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}& \frac{1}{2}\xi ^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\\ \frac{1}{2}\xi ^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }& \left(\xi _1^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}\left(Z^{\gamma \gamma }\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}& \frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\\ \frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }& \left(Z^{ZZ}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\end{array}\right),$$
(35)
$$\xi ^\mathrm{Z}=\xi _2^\mathrm{Z}\frac{M_\mathrm{Z}^2+\delta M_\mathrm{Z}^2}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}Z^\chi ,$$
(36)
$$\xi ^\mathrm{W}=\frac{1}{Z^W}\xi _1^\mathrm{W}\xi ^\mathrm{W}=\xi _2^\mathrm{W}\frac{M_\mathrm{W}^2+\delta M_\mathrm{W}^2}{M_\mathrm{W}^2}Z^\varphi $$
(37)
no counterterm contributions arise from the gauge-fixing sector. Here we have allowed for field renormalisation constants $`\delta Z^\chi ,\delta Z^\varphi `$ of the unphysical scalars $`\chi ,\varphi ^\pm `$ as well. Starting at the two-loop level, counterterm contributions from the ghost sector have to be taken into account in the calculation of physical amplitudes. They follow from the variation of the gauge-fixing terms $`F^a`$ under infinitesimal gauge transformations, $`\delta \theta ^b,b=\gamma ,\mathrm{Z},\pm `$,

$$_{\mathrm{FP}}=\underset{a,b=\gamma ,Z,\pm }{}\overline{u}^a\frac{\delta F^a}{\delta \theta ^b}u^b=d^4y\underset{a,b}{}\overline{u}^a(x)\frac{\delta F^a(x)}{\delta \theta ^b(y)}u^b(y).$$
(38)
These contributions can be derived from the action of the gauge transformations on the gauge and Goldstone fields as follows,

$`A_\mu `$ $``$ $`A_\mu +_\mu \delta \theta ^\gamma +ie\left(W_\mu ^+\delta \theta ^{}W_\mu ^{}\delta \theta ^+\right),`$
$`Z_\mu `$ $``$ $`Z_\mu +_\mu \delta \theta ^\mathrm{Z}ie{\displaystyle \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}}\left(W_\mu ^+\delta \theta ^{}W_\mu ^{}\delta \theta ^+\right),`$
$`W_\mu ^\pm `$ $``$ $`W_\mu ^\pm +_\mu \delta \theta ^\pm ie\left(W_\mu ^\pm \delta \theta ^\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}}W_\mu ^\pm \delta \theta ^\mathrm{Z}A_\mu \delta \theta ^\pm +{\displaystyle \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}}Z_\mu \delta \theta ^\pm \right),`$ (39)
$`\chi `$ $``$ $`\chi \left(M_\mathrm{Z}+{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}}}H\right)\delta \theta ^\mathrm{Z}+{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2s_\mathrm{W}}}\left(\varphi ^+\delta \theta ^{}+\varphi ^{}\delta \theta ^+\right),`$
$`\varphi ^\pm `$ $``$ $`\varphi ^\pm ie\varphi ^\pm \delta \theta ^\gamma ie{\displaystyle \frac{s_\mathrm{W}^2c_\mathrm{W}^2}{2c_\mathrm{W}s_\mathrm{W}}}\varphi ^\pm \delta \theta ^\mathrm{Z}\pm \left(iM_\mathrm{W}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{2s_\mathrm{W}}}H{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2s_\mathrm{W}}}\chi \right)\delta \theta ^\pm .`$
We have derived all the counterterms arising from the ghost sector (extending the results of Refs.  to a general $`R_\xi `$ gauge) and implemented them into the program FeynArts. In this way we could verify the finiteness of individual (gauge-parameter-dependent) building blocks (e.g. the W- and the Z-boson self-energy) as a further check of the calculation. The explicit Feynman rules of the ghost sector including counterterms can be found in the appendix.

### 3.2 Two-loop counterterms

In the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ calculation of the muon decay, two-loop counterterms arise for the transverse W propagator and the charged current vertex:

$`\left[\text{}\right]_\mathrm{T}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta Z_{(2)}^\mathrm{W}(k^2M_\mathrm{W}^2)\delta M_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2\delta Z_{(1)}^\mathrm{W}\delta M_{\mathrm{W},(1)}^2,`$ (40)
$`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{e}{\sqrt{2}s_\mathrm{W}}}\gamma _\mu \omega _{}[\delta Z_{e(2)}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\delta Z_{(2)}^{e\mathrm{L}}+\delta Z_{(2)}^\mathrm{W}+\delta Z_{(2)}^{\nu \mathrm{L}})`$
$`+\text{(1-loop renormalisation constants)}].`$
The numbers in parentheses indicate the loop order. Throughout this paper, the two-loop contributions always include the subloop renormalisation.

Concerning the mass renormalisation of unstable particles, from two-loop order on it makes a difference whether the mass is defined according to the real part of the complex pole of the S matrix,

$$^2=\overline{M}^2i\overline{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }},$$
(42)
or according to the pole of the real part of the propagator. In eq. (42) $``$ denotes the complex pole of the S matrix as specified by the renormalisation conditions in eq. (14). $`\overline{M}`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ are then interpreted as the corresponding mass and width of the unstable particle. For the real pole, on the other hand, we use the symbol $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$. It is determined by

$$Re\left\{\left(D_\mathrm{T}\right)^1(\stackrel{~}{M}^2)\right\}=0.$$
(43)
In the context of the present calculation, these considerations are relevant for the renormalisation of the gauge-boson masses, $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{Z}`$. The two-loop mass counterterms according to the definition of the mass as the real part of the complex pole are obtained from eq. (14),

$`\delta \overline{M}_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Re}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(2)}^\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\}\delta M_{\mathrm{W},(1)}^2\delta Z_{(1)}^\mathrm{W}+\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{W}^/}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\}\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\},`$ (44)
$`\delta \overline{M}_{\mathrm{Z},(2)}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Re}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(2)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}\delta M_{\mathrm{Z},(1)}^2\delta Z_{(1)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}+{\displaystyle \frac{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}{4}}\left(\delta Z_{(1)}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}\right)^2}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}}`$ (45)
$`+\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}^/}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}.`$
When compared with the mass counterterms according to the real-pole definition, $`\delta \stackrel{~}{M}_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{~}{M}_{\mathrm{Z},(2)}^2`$, there remains a finite difference,

$`\delta \overline{M}_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \stackrel{~}{M}_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2+\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{W}^/}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\}\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{W}^2)\right\},`$ (46)
$`\delta \overline{M}_{\mathrm{Z},(2)}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \stackrel{~}{M}_{\mathrm{Z},(2)}^2+\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}^/}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^{\mathrm{ZZ}}(M_\mathrm{Z}^2)\right\}.`$ (47)
It can easily be checked by direct computation that the difference terms in eqs. (46), (47) are gauge-parameter-dependent, thus showing that at least one of the two prescriptions leads to a gauge-dependent mass definition. The problem of a proper definition of unstable particles in gauge theories has already been addressed several times in the literature . However, the present work, for the first time, involves an explicit calculation of a physical process which is sensitive to the gauge-parameter dependent difference between the two mass renormalisation methods. In the previous results for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$, incorporating terms up to $`𝒪(G_\mu ^2m_\mathrm{t}^2M_\mathrm{Z}^2)`$  and $`M_\mathrm{H}`$-dependent fermionic terms , the contribution $`\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}^^/(M^2)\right\}\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{T},(1)}(M^2)\right\}`$ was zero, making thus a strict distinction between the two mass definitions unnecessary at the considered order.

Using a general $`R_\xi `$ gauge, we can test the two mass renormalisation prescriptions in our result by regarding the two-loop counterterms to physical observables, which should be gauge-parameter independent. In particular, we only find an invariant result for the counterterm to the weak mixing angle, $`\delta s_{\mathrm{W},(2)}`$, with the definition of the gauge-boson masses according to the complex pole.

In order to verify the gauge-parameter independence of the mass counterterms $`\delta M_{\mathrm{W},(2)}^2`$, $`\delta M_{\mathrm{Z},(2)}^2`$ one needs an appropriate treatment of the Higgs tadpole diagrams, which do not contribute to physical observables. Alternatively to eq. (25), one can include all Higgs tadpole diagrams in the calculation by demanding the tadpole counterterm to be zero, $`\delta t=0`$. Technically, this corresponds to the inclusion of all tadpole diagrams not only in the two-loop self-energies, but also in the subloop renormalisation. In this case, also the mass counterterms themselves are gauge-parameter independent when using the mass definition via the complex pole.

These results confirm the expectations from S-matrix theory that the complex pole is a gauge-invariant quantity .

We have thus adopted the complex-pole definition as given in eq. (44) and eq. (45). Using this mass definition and expanding the gauge boson propagator around its pole

$$\left(D_\mathrm{T}\right)^1(q^2)=\left(D_\mathrm{T}\right)^1(^2)+\left(q^2^2\right)\frac{}{k^2}\left(D_\mathrm{T}\right)^1(k^2)|_{k^2=^2}+𝒪\left((q^2^2)^2\right)$$
(48)
one obtains with the renormalisation conditions eq. (14)

$$D_\mathrm{T}(q^2)=\frac{i\mathrm{const}.}{q^2\overline{M}^2+i\overline{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}+\text{non-resonant terms,}$$
(49)
which corresponds to a Breit–Wigner parametrisation of the resonance line shape with a constant decay width.

Experimentally the gauge-boson masses are determined using a Breit–Wigner function with a running (energy-dependent) width,

$$D_\mathrm{T}(q^2)\frac{i}{q^2M^2+iq^2\mathrm{\Gamma }/M}.$$
(50)
As a consequence of the different Breit–Wigner parametrisations, there is a numerical difference between the experimental mass parameters (denoted as $`M_\mathrm{W}`$, $`M_\mathrm{Z}`$ henceforth) and the mass parameters in our calculation, $`\overline{M}_\mathrm{W}`$, $`\overline{M}_\mathrm{Z}`$. The shift between these parameters is given by  $`M_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}}=\overline{M}_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}}^2/(2M_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{Z}})`$. Since $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{Z}`$ enter on a different footing in our computation — $`M_\mathrm{Z}`$ is an experimental input parameter, while $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ is calculated — in order to evaluate the mass shifts we use the experimental value for the Z-boson width, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{Z}=2.944\pm 0.0024`$ GeV , and the theoretical value for the W-boson width, which is given by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{W}=3G_\mu M_\mathrm{W}^3/(2\sqrt{2}\pi )(1+2\alpha _\mathrm{s}/(3\pi ))`$ in sufficiently good approximation. This results in $`M_\mathrm{Z}\overline{M}_\mathrm{Z}+34.1`$ MeV and in the mass shifts $`M_\mathrm{W}\overline{M}_\mathrm{W}+27.4`$ MeV and $`M_\mathrm{W}\overline{M}_\mathrm{W}+27.0`$ MeV for $`M_\mathrm{W}=80.4`$ GeV and $`M_\mathrm{W}=80.2`$ GeV, respectively.222 The difference in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{W}`$ according to the way it is calculated, through the tree-level result parametrised with $`\alpha `$, or the improved Born result parametrised with $`G_\mu `$, or the improved Born result including QCD corrections (which is the one we used), is formally of higher order (i.e. beyond $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$) in the calculation of $`M_\mathrm{W}`$. Its numerical effect is nevertheless not completely negligible; it changes the shift in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ by about $`2.9`$ MeV if the tree-level result for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{W}`$ parametrised with $`\alpha `$ is used and by about $`1.4`$ MeV if the $`G_\mu `$ parametrisation of the Born width (without QCD corrections) is employed.

For an extension of the renormalisation formalism for unstable particles to higher loop orders and to the field renormalisation of unstable particles, see Refs. . However, in a physical process with particles in the initial and final state whose mass can be neglected, a treatment of complex poles is only necessary for internal particles. Since the field renormalisation of internal particles does not contribute to the physical result, it is not necessary to examine this issue for our purposes.

The two-loop charge renormalisation constant follows from the condition eq. (28). With the help of the U(1) Ward identity the electromagnetic vertex can be related to photonic two-point functions, thus resulting in the following relation between the renormalisation constants, which is valid in all orders of perturbation theory :

$$Z_e\left((Z^{\gamma \gamma })^{1/2}+\frac{s_\mathrm{W}+\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{c_\mathrm{W}+\delta c_\mathrm{W}}\frac{\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }}{2}\right)=1.$$
(51)
Expansion up to $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ yields

$$\delta Z_{e}^{}{}_{(2)}{}^{}=\frac{1}{2}\delta Z_{(2)}^{\gamma \gamma }\frac{s_\mathrm{W}}{2c_\mathrm{W}}\delta Z_{(2)}^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }+\left(\delta Z_{e}^{}{}_{(1)}{}^{}\right)^2+\frac{1}{8}\left(\delta Z_{(1)}^{\gamma \gamma }\right)^2\frac{1}{2c_\mathrm{W}^3}\delta Z_{(1)}^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }\delta s_{\mathrm{W}}^{}{}_{(1)}{}^{}.$$
(52)
Furthermore the two-loop field renormalisation constants for the external leptons are needed in eq. (3.2). These can be easily obtained in the limit of vanishing masses and momenta of the external fermions, yielding

$$\delta Z_{(2)}^{f\mathrm{L}}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{(2)}^{f\mathrm{L}}(m_f^2=0).$$
(53)
## 4 Extraction of Fermi Model QED contributions

In the evaluation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$, the IR-divergent QED corrections that are already contained in the Fermi Model QED factor have to be extracted. For the two-loop calculation presented here, the corresponding Fermi Model contributions consist of virtual and real photonic corrections of order $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ and of order $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ with one closed fermion loop, see Fig. 3, where it is understood that all lepton and quark flavours can appear in the loop.

Denoting the virtual corrections to the Fermi Model by $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}`$ and the real corrections by $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}`$, this reads

$$|_{\mathrm{Fermi}}|^2=|_{\mathrm{Born}}|^2(1+\mathrm{\Delta }q)=|_{\mathrm{Born}}|^2\left(1+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha ^2)}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha ^2)}\right).$$
(54)
The calculation of the virtual corrections to muon decay in the full Standard Model involves box-type diagrams with IR divergences. In the following, all Standard Model contributions involving photons in the loop are encompassed by the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$. The one-loop QED corrections $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}`$ originate from the diagram given in Fig. 4 (a). At two-loop order one can distinguish between corrections with only electromagnetic couplings in addition to the tree-level couplings, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{V},\mathrm{em}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$, see Fig. 4 (b), and corrections with additional QED and non-QED couplings, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{V},\mathrm{em}/\mathrm{weak}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$, see Fig. 4 (c). Here it is always understood that the two-loop corrections involve one closed fermion loop.

By performing a tensor integral decomposition of these classes of diagrams one observes that they can be expressed in terms of the virtual corrections in the Fermi Model and an IR-finite remainder $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr}}`$,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}+2\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr}}^{(\alpha )}`$ (55)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{V},\mathrm{em}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha ^2)}+2\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr},1}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ (56)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{V},\mathrm{em}/\mathrm{weak}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr}}^{(\alpha )}\right)\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha )}+2\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr},2}^{(\alpha ^2)}.`$ (57)
Note that the factor 2 in these formulae arises due to fact that $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ enters linearly into the muon decay width, see eq. (1), while there is a quadratic dependence on $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$, see eq. (2). The finite remainders are then combined with all remaining virtual Standard Model contributions into $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )},\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha ^2)}`$. In eq. (57) $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha )}`$ corresponds to the non-QED one-loop corrections with a closed fermion loop.

Besides box-type diagrams, IR divergences are also present in the field renormalisation of the external leptons. Here the correspondence to the Fermi Model contributions is trivial.

Similar to the virtual diagrams, the real bremsstrahlung corrections to muon decay in the Standard Model can be divided into the one-loop contribution $`\tau _\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}`$, two-loop corrections with additional electromagnetic couplings only, $`\tau _{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{em}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$, and mixed QED/non-QED couplings, $`\tau _{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{em}/\mathrm{weak}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$, see Fig. 5.

Exploiting the fact that the momentum transfer $`q^2`$ through the W boson propagator of these diagrams is much smaller than the W mass, $`q^2M_\mathrm{W}^2`$, in the limit of zero momentum transfer the real contributions can be reduced to the real Fermi Model contributions,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}`$ (58)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{em}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ (59)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{em}/\mathrm{weak}}^{(\alpha ^2)}`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha )}.`$ (60)
In total, the contributions to the two-loop Standard Model matrix element amount to

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill |_{\mathrm{SM}}|^2& =|_{\mathrm{Born}}|^2[(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha ^2)})^2\hfill & +\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha ^2)}+2\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{V}^{(\alpha )}\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha )}\hfill \\ & & +\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha ^2)}+2\mathrm{\Delta }q_\mathrm{R}^{(\alpha )}\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{ferm}}^{(\alpha )}]\hfill \\ & \multicolumn{2}{c}{=|_{\mathrm{Born}}|^2\left[(1+\mathrm{\Delta }q)(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r)^2+𝒪(\alpha ^3)\right],}\end{array}$$
(61)
which can be written in the factorised form at least up to two-loop order including one closed fermion loop. Contributions with two closed fermion loops at $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ are not present in the Fermi Model and do not contain any IR divergences. Comparing eq. (61) with eq. (54) one obtains

$$|_{\mathrm{SM}}|^2=|_{\mathrm{Fermi}}|^2(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r)^2,$$
(62)
showing that a factorisation of electromagnetic corrections to the Fermi Model and the remaining electroweak corrections in the Standard Model according to eq. (1), (2) is possible at least up to the given order.

The calculation of the remaining terms $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr}}`$, in which the QED Standard Model and Fermi Model contributions in eq. (55)–(57) differ, requires the subtraction of Fermi Model diagrams from Standard Model graphs, as shown in Fig. 6.

These terms are IR-finite but UV-divergent and therefore require regularisation. In our approach, dimensional regularisation turns out to be problematic for this purpose since for the computation of the fermion lines in diagrams like those in Fig. 6 we use the Chisholm identity

$$\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu \gamma _\rho =iϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\gamma ^\sigma \gamma _5+g_{\mu \nu }\gamma _\rho +g_{\nu \rho }\gamma _\mu g_{\mu \rho }\gamma _\nu .$$
(63)
This identity, however, is only valid in 4 dimensions. In order to circumvent this problem we employ Pauli-Villars regularisation for the QED corrections to the Fermi vertex. The combination of these vertex corrections, Fig. 3 (a), with the QED part of the field renormalisation of the external leptons forms an UV-finite quantity. It is therefore possible to evaluate this combination using Pauli-Villars regularisation (PaVi) and employ dimensional regularisation (DReg) for the rest. This can formally be written as

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{fr}}=\left[\text{QED box graphs in SM}\right]_{\mathrm{DReg}}\left[\text{QED vertex corr. to FM}\right]_{\mathrm{PaVi}}\\ \hfill +\left[\frac{1}{2}\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{\mu \mathrm{L}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{e\mathrm{L}}\right]_{\mathrm{DReg}}\left[\frac{1}{2}\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{\mu \mathrm{L}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{e\mathrm{L}}\right]_{\mathrm{PaVi}}.\end{array}$$
(64)
The index ”em” at the field renormalisation constants $`\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{\mu \mathrm{L}}`$, $`\delta Z_{\mathrm{em}}^{e\mathrm{L}}`$ indicates that only the QED-like diagrams of the lepton self-energies are taken into account for the calculation of these constants. Since the Standard Model box diagrams are UV finite, they can also be computed with a Pauli-Villars regulator. Thus the cancellation of the IR divergences between the two terms in the first line of eq. (64) proceeds in a straightforward manner and no IR regulator is required.

A similar cancellation of IR divergences takes place for the terms in the second line of eq. (64). This can be made explicit by introducing the Pauli-Villars regulator $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in photon propagators according to the replacement

$$\frac{1}{k^2}\frac{1}{k^2}\frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}$$
(65)
with $`k`$ being the photon momentum. In the difference in the second line of eq. (64) this corresponds to the replacement of the photon propagator in the lepton self-energies by

$$\frac{1}{k^2}\frac{1}{k^2}\left(\frac{1}{k^2}\frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right)=\frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2},$$
(66)
or, for the case of two photon propagators in the loop,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\right)\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\right)`$ (67)
$`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}.`$
It can be seen that this replacement effectively leads to the introduction of massive photons with mass $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ so that no IR divergences are present anymore.

## 5 Numerical Results

We shall now discuss the numerical evaluation of our result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$. It should be noted that our definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ according to eq. (2) is based on the expanded form $`\left(1+\mathrm{\Delta }r\right)`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }r=\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha ^2)}+\mathrm{}`$ rather than on the resummed form $`1/(1\mathrm{\Delta }r)`$. The terms obtained at two-loop order from a resummation of leading one-loop contributions are directly contained in our two-loop contribution to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$. The following contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ are taken into account

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r=\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s})}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_\mathrm{f}\alpha ^2)}+\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_\mathrm{f}^2\alpha ^2)},$$
(68)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}`$ is the one-loop result, eq. (3), $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s})}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)}`$ are the two-loop  and three-loop  QCD corrections, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_\mathrm{f}\alpha ^2)}`$ is the new electroweak two-loop result. The symbolic notation $`(N_\mathrm{f}\alpha ^2)`$ encompasses the contribution of all diagrams containing one fermion loop, i. e. both the top/bottom and light-fermion contributions. Correspondingly, the term $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_\mathrm{f}^2\alpha ^2)}`$ contains the pure fermion-loop contributions in two-loop order.

The pure fermion-loop contributions in three- and four-loop order turn out to be numerically small, as a consequence of accidental numerical cancellations, with a net effect of only about 1 MeV in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ (using the real-pole definition of the gauge-boson masses) . Furthermore, also the leading three-loop contributions for a large top-quark mass in the limit of zero Higgs mass, proportional to $`\alpha ^3m_\mathrm{t}^6`$ and $`\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s}m_\mathrm{t}^4`$, have very little impact on the prediction of $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ . Therefore these two corrections have not been included in this analysis.

In Figure 7 and Table 1 numerical values for different two-loop contributions with one closed fermion are given as a function of the Higgs boson mass $`M_\mathrm{H}`$, using $`M_\mathrm{W}=80.451`$ , $`m_\mathrm{t}=174.3`$  and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.05911`$ . The contributions with two closed fermion loops are not given in the figure and table since they are independent of $`M_\mathrm{H}`$. Numerically, they yield a contribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_\mathrm{f}^2\alpha ^2)}=16.310^4`$. The Higgs-mass dependence of the two-loop result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ agrees perfectly with the result previously obtained in Ref. .

It can be seen that both corrections with a top-/bottom-loop, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_{\mathrm{tb}}\alpha ^2)}`$, and with a light-fermion loop, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_{\mathrm{lf}}\alpha ^2)}`$ yield important contributions. At first glance it looks surprising that the light-fermion contributions even dominate over the top-/bottom-contributions for large Higgs masses ($`M_\mathrm{H}\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}300}\mathrm{GeV}`$), which seems to endanger the validity of the large-$`m_\mathrm{t}`$ expansions . However, in previous analyses, resummation prescriptions  have been derived in order to obtain partial terms of the two-loop result. With the replacement

$$1+\mathrm{\Delta }r\frac{1}{1\mathrm{\Delta }r}$$
(69)
the term $`2\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}`$, generated from the charge renormalisation in bosonic one-loop terms, is correctly predicted , as we have checked by comparing with the full result, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_{\mathrm{lf}}\alpha ^2)}`$. Therefore, in order to demonstrate the effect of the new two-loop contribution, the difference

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{sub},1\mathrm{loop}}^{(N_{\mathrm{lf}}\alpha ^2)}=\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_{\mathrm{lf}}\alpha ^2)}2\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}$$
(70)
is shown in Figure 7 and Table 1. This expression does not exceed the top-/bottom contributions for any value of the Higgs mass below 1 TeV. The new contribution to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ from diagrams with a light-fermion loop amounts up to $`3.310^4`$ which corresponds to a shift in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ of $`>5`$ MeV.

The prediction for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ is obtained from eq. (2) by means of an iterative procedure, since $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ itself depends on $`M_\mathrm{W}`$,

$$M_\mathrm{W}^2=M_\mathrm{Z}^2\left\{\frac{1}{2}+\sqrt{\frac{1}{4}\frac{\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{2}G_\mu M_\mathrm{Z}^2}\left[1+\mathrm{\Delta }r(M_\mathrm{W},M_\mathrm{Z},M_\mathrm{H},m_\mathrm{t},\mathrm{})\right]}\right\}.$$
(71)
In Fig. 8 the prediction for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ based on the results of eq. (68) is shown as a function of $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ for $`m_\mathrm{t}=174.3\pm 5.1`$ GeV  and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.05911\pm 0.00036`$ . For comparison, the present experimental value, $`M_\mathrm{W}^{\mathrm{exp}}=80.451\pm 0.033`$ GeV , and the experimental 95% C.L. lower bound on $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ ($`M_\mathrm{H}=114.1`$ GeV ) from the direct search are also indicated. The plot exhibits the well-known preference for a light Higgs boson within the SM. In particular, the theoretical prediction (including the band from a variation of $`m_\mathrm{t}`$, which at present dominates the uncertainty of the prediction, see below, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ within $`1\sigma `$) cannot be matched with the $`1\sigma `$ region of $`M_\mathrm{W}^{\mathrm{exp}}`$ and the 95% C.L. exclusion limit on $`M_\mathrm{H}`$.

We have compared our results with those of an expansion for asymptotically large values of $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ up to $`𝒪(G_\mu ^2m_\mathrm{t}^2M_\mathrm{Z}^2)`$ . The results are shown in Table 2 for different values of $`M_\mathrm{H}`$. The values for the input parameters are taken from Ref. , i.e. $`m_\mathrm{t}=175`$ GeV, $`M_\mathrm{Z}=91.1863`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.0594`$, $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}(M_\mathrm{Z})=0.118`$. One observes a relatively good agreement, with maximal deviations in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ of about $`5`$ MeV.

It should be noted that the deviations in the last column of Table 2 can not be attributed solely to differences in the two-loop fermionic contributions, because the results also differ by a slightly different treatment of higher-order terms that are not yet under control.

In a further analysis, we have aimed at reducing the latter deviations as far as possible in order to focus on the effects from the two-loop top-quark and light-fermion contributions (see also the discussion in Ref. ). While the result of Ref.  contains a term $`\left(\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}\right)^2`$ generated from the purely bosonic one-loop contributions by the resummation eq. (69), no such term is included in our result. A second possible source of deviation could be caused by different implementations of the QCD corrections. We have therefore performed a comparison in which the QCD corrections were removed from both results. With these modifications the maximum deviation between the results is not decreased, see second column in Table 3, but the maximal difference in the Higgs-mass dependence $`M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H})M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H}=65\mathrm{GeV})`$ is reduced from $`4.7`$ MeV in Table 2 to $`1.4`$ MeV.

It is also interesting to separately examine the effects of the top-bottom contributions that are not contained in Ref.  and of the two-loop terms from the remaining light-fermionic flavours. In the third column in Table 3 we have therefore excluded all light-fermionic $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ contributions from the comparison. This is achieved by subtracting the expression $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(N_{\mathrm{lf}}\alpha ^2)}2\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{lf}}^{(\alpha )}\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}`$, where the second term $`2\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{lf}}^{(\alpha )}\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}`$ accounts for the light-fermionic terms that were included in Ref.  by means of the resummation presciption eq. (69). The remaining deviations between the results, which now only contain top-/bottom contributions at the two-loop level, are somewhat smaller, while there are larger differences in the Higgs mass dependence of up to $`2.8`$ MeV.

In Ref.  a simple formula was given which parametrises our full result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$,

$$M_\mathrm{W}=M_\mathrm{W}^0c_1\mathrm{dH}c_5\mathrm{dH}^2+c_6\mathrm{dH}^4c_2\mathrm{d}\alpha +c_3\mathrm{dt}c_7\mathrm{dH}\mathrm{dt}c_4\mathrm{d}\alpha _\mathrm{s},$$
(72)
where

$$\mathrm{dH}=\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{M_\mathrm{H}}{100\mathrm{GeV}}\right),\mathrm{dt}=\left(\frac{m_\mathrm{t}}{174.3\mathrm{GeV}}\right)^21,\mathrm{d}\alpha =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha }{0.05924}1,\mathrm{d}\alpha _\mathrm{s}=\frac{\alpha _\mathrm{s}(M_\mathrm{Z})}{0.119}1,$$
(73)
and $`M_\mathrm{Z}=91.1875`$ GeV  has been used. By a least square fit we have obtained for the coefficients $`c_1,\mathrm{},c_7`$

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}\hfill M_\mathrm{W}^0& =& 80.3755\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill c_4& =& 0.0763\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill c_1& =& 0.0561\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill c_5& =& 0.00936\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill c_2& =& 1.081\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill c_6& =& 0.000546\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill c_3& =& 0.5235\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill c_7& =& 0.00573\mathrm{GeV}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(74)
The parametrisation of eq. (72) approximates our full result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ within $`0.4`$ MeV for $`65\mathrm{GeV}M_\mathrm{H}1\mathrm{TeV}`$ and the other input values within their $`1\sigma `$ experimental bounds.

Since this region of validity is in general not sufficient for global fits of the Standard Model, here we supply a more elaborate parametrisation, including the dependence on the Z-boson mass,

$$M_\mathrm{W}=M_\mathrm{W}^0d_1\mathrm{dH}d_2\mathrm{dH}^2+d_3\mathrm{dH}^4d_4\mathrm{d}\alpha +d_5\mathrm{dt}d_6\mathrm{dt}^2d_7\mathrm{dH}\mathrm{dt}d_8\mathrm{d}\alpha _\mathrm{s}+d_9\mathrm{dZ},$$
(75)
with $`\mathrm{dZ}=M_\mathrm{Z}/(91.1875\mathrm{GeV})1`$ and the other symbols as given in eq. (73). With the following values for the coefficients $`d_1,\mathrm{},d_9`$,

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}\hfill M_\mathrm{W}^0& =& 80.3756\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill d_5& =& 0.5236\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill d_1& =& 0.05619\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill d_6& =& 0.0727\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill d_2& =& 0.009305\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill d_7& =& 0.00544\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill d_3& =& 0.0005365\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill d_8& =& 0.0765\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \\ \hfill d_4& =& 1.078\mathrm{GeV},\hfill & \hfill d_9& =& 115.0\mathrm{GeV},\hfill \end{array}$$
(76)
the full result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ is approximated by eq. (75) better than $`0.3`$ MeV for $`65\mathrm{GeV}M_\mathrm{H}1\mathrm{TeV}`$ and $`2\sigma `$ variations of all other experimental input values.

## 6 Remaining theoretical uncertainties

Presently, the prediction of the W mass from $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is mainly affected by the experimental error in the top mass determination, $`m_\mathrm{t}=174.3\pm 5.1`$ . This induces an error of $`30`$ MeV in the predicted W mass. It is expected that the LHC can reduce the error on the top mass down to about 1.5 GeV  and a high-luminosity linear collider even to below 200 MeV , resulting in an error in the $`M_\mathrm{W}`$-prediction from the $`m_\mathrm{t}`$-uncertainty of $`10`$ MeV and $`1.2`$ MeV, respectively. Another important source of uncertainty is the experimental error in the determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$, which in a recent analysis was quoted to be $`3610^5`$ , inducing an error of $`6.5`$ MeV in the predicted W mass. It is expected that this uncertainty will be further reduced significantly in the future . On the other hand, the experimental error of the direct measurement of the W mass, currently 33 MeV, is expected to reduce to 15 MeV for the LHC  and 6 MeV for a linear collider running at the W pair threshold .

Concerning the theoretical prediction, there are three main sources for uncertainties induced by unknown higher orders: the missing purely bosonic two-loop contributions, three-loop electroweak contributions and the lowest missing QCD corrections of order $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ and $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^3)`$.

For the three-loop $`𝒪(\alpha ^3)`$ electroweak corrections, partial results are available. In particular the contribution from purely fermionic loops  is known, which amounts to a net effect of about 1 MeV in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$. Recently, the leading terms for large top masses proportional to $`m_\mathrm{t}^6`$ , which enter via the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$, have been calculated, having an effect of much less than 1 MeV on $`M_\mathrm{W}`$. However, for the case of the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ correction it turned out that the formally leading term $`m_\mathrm{t}^4`$  in the limit $`M_\mathrm{H}=0`$ is suppressed relative to the next term $`m_\mathrm{t}^2`$ , which suggests that the full $`𝒪(\alpha ^3)`$ corrections could be of $`𝒪`$(1 MeV). Alternatively, one could try to estimate their size from residual scheme dependencies of the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ result. For example, the W width is needed at tree-level in order to translate between the different Breit-Wigner parametrisations mentioned in section 2. Whether $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{W}`$ is parametrised with $`\alpha `$ or $`G_\mu `$ is formally of order $`𝒪(\alpha ^3)`$ and also results in a shift in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ of $`𝒪`$(1 MeV).

For the QCD correction of order $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$, the leading contribution $`m_\mathrm{t}^4`$ in an expansion for large $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ has been calculated in the limit of vanishing Higgs mass . It turned out to result in a W mass shift of only less than 0.5 MeV. However, as explained above, the formally leading term $`m_\mathrm{t}^4`$ can be suppressed relative to the sub-leading terms, so that the total $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ contribution could be considerably larger.

Higher order QCD contributions may be estimated from the renormalisation scale dependence of the available results. For this purpose running $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ values at different scales are used for the top-mass $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ or strong coupling $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}`$. With this variation in the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ result we obtain a shift in $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ of $`3.8`$ MeV, which gives an estimate of the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ contributions. Accordingly, from the scale dependence of the $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)`$ result, we estimate the effect of the $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^3)`$ term to yield $`0.7`$ MeV.

A second method for estimating the missing QCD corrections relies on the assumption that the ratios of consecutive coefficients in the pertubative series do not change very much. In this case the ratio between the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ and $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ should be of the same size as the ratio between $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s})}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha )}`$ 333This ratio amounts to $`12\%`$ in accordance with $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}(M_\mathrm{Z})`$.. From this we deduce that the effect of the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ contribution on $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ is about $`3.5`$ MeV, which is in nice agreement with the previous estimate. In a similar manner, we can compare the ratios $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)}/\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s})}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^3)}/\mathrm{\Delta }r^{(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^2)}`$ and obtain $`0.7`$ MeV for the impact of the $`𝒪(\alpha \alpha _\mathrm{s}^3)`$ contribution.

The third important higher order contribution, the bosonic $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ correction, is more difficult to estimate. In a simple approach the one-loop bosonic contribution is resummed according to the prescription eq. (69) which results in a term $`\left(\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha )}\right)^2`$. This term shifts the W mass by less than 0.5 MeV for $`M_\mathrm{H}=100`$ GeV, but more than 2.5 MeV for $`M_\mathrm{H}=1`$ TeV.

We obtain the total theory uncertainty by linearly adding up all sources for theoretical errors. This results in an uncertainty for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ of 6 MeV for light Higgs masses and about 8 MeV for $`M_\mathrm{H}1`$ TeV, which is similar to the value given in Ref. . The error band due to these theoretical uncertainties is shown in Figure 9.

Recently the new two-loop results for the prediction of the W-boson mass have been implemented into the Standard Model fits with Zfitter  and are subject to the latest LEP electroweak analyses . While the effect on the predicted value for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ is relatively small compared to the experimental error, it induces a significant shift in the prediction of the effective leptonic weak mixing angle $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{lept}}`$ according to

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{lept}}=\left(1\frac{M_\mathrm{W}^2}{M_\mathrm{Z}^2}\right)\kappa (M_\mathrm{W}^2),$$
(77)
where $`\kappa `$ incorporates the contributions from radiative corrections. The effect of inserting the new result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ in eq. (77) instead of the previous result obtained from an expansion in powers of $`m_\mathrm{t}`$  amounts to an upward shift of about $`810^5`$, which is about half the experimental error of $`1710^5`$ . Since the corresponding complete fermionic two-loop corrections for $`\kappa `$ are not yet known, this shift has been treated as a theoretical uncertainty and is represented as a rather wide band in the well-known *blue-band plot* .

## 7 Higgs-mass dependence of bosonic two-loop result

As a first step towards a full $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ we have calculated the dependence of the bosonic two-loop corrections on the Higgs-boson mass. This includes the evaluation of all diagrams without closed fermion loops which contain internal Higgs bosons or $`M_\mathrm{H}`$-dependent scalar couplings. Some typical examples are given in Figure 10. This subset of the complete bosonic two-loop corrections can be evaluated with the methods described in sections 24. In particular, the factorisation of IR-divergent QED corrections as in eq. (61) also applies for the bosonic $`M_\mathrm{H}`$-dependent contributions.

In order to study the Higgs-mass dependence, the subtracted quantity

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos},\mathrm{sub}}^{(\alpha ^2)}(M_\mathrm{H},M_\mathrm{H}^0)=\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha ^2)}(M_\mathrm{H})\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos}}^{(\alpha ^2)}(M_\mathrm{H}^0)$$
(78)
is considered, using a fixed offset value for the Higgs-boson mass, $`M_\mathrm{H}^0=100\mathrm{GeV}`$. The contribution of the $`M_\mathrm{H}`$-dependent diagrams to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{bos},\mathrm{sub}}^{(\alpha ^2)}(M_\mathrm{H},M_\mathrm{H}^0)`$ forms a finite and gauge-parameter independent quantity, as we have explicitly checked. This analysis is in analogy to Ref. , were the corresponding quantity for the fermionic two-loop contributions was studied.

In Table 4 the variation of the prediction for the W-mass $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ as a function of the Higgs mass $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ is shown without and with the bosonic two-loop terms, using the input values of Table 1. As before the values are given in terms of the subtracted quantity

$$M_{\mathrm{W},\mathrm{sub}}(M_\mathrm{H})=M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H})M_\mathrm{W}(M_\mathrm{H}^0=100\mathrm{GeV}).$$
(79)
Figure 11 shows how the slope of the Higgs-mass dependence is modified due to the inclusion of the bosonic two-loop two-loop terms. The maximum change amounts to less than 2 MeV in the region $`100\mathrm{GeV}<M_\mathrm{H}<1\mathrm{TeV}`$. As a consequence, from the $`M_\mathrm{H}`$-dependence we get no indications for any particularly large effects in the full bosonic two-loop corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$. In this context we would like to point out the observation that the Higgs-mass dependence of the fermionic two-loop corrections  provides a rough assessment of the effect of the full two-loop corrections . This supports the estimation in section 6 that the expected size of the purely bosonic $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ contributions is relatively small.

## 8 Prospects for future colliders

In the following we illustrate the accuracy that can be reached with future colliders concerning tests of electroweak physics. Taking the current central values of the experimental input values, Fig. 12 shows the situation that can be obtained with the LHC with expected errors for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ and $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ of $`\delta M_\mathrm{W}=15`$ MeV and $`\delta m_\mathrm{t}=1.5`$ GeV, respectively. Even more impressive results could be achieved by a high-luminosity linear collider running at low energies, where errors of $`\delta M_\mathrm{W}=6`$ MeV and $`\delta m_\mathrm{t}=200`$ MeV may be obtained , see Fig. 13. In both figures we furthermore assumed that the error in the shift of the electromagnetic fine structure constant, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$, will be cut to half of the present value.

## 9 Conclusion

In this paper, the evaluation of the complete fermionic two-loop contributions to the $`M_\mathrm{W}`$$`M_\mathrm{Z}`$ mass correlation was described, elucidating the applied techniques and the implications of the new result.

The renormalisation within the on-shell scheme was described in detail. In particular, the definition of the gauge-boson masses via the complex pole of the S matrix was studied, ensuring in particular gauge-parameter independence of the renormalised weak mixing angle and the gauge boson masses. The latter requires to take tadpole contributions into account. It was shown how the radiative corrections in the Standard Model can be factorised from the QED corrections within the Fermi Model.

The result for $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ was expressed in terms of an accurate numerical parametrisation valid for all values of the Higgs mass up to 1 TeV. A detailed comparison with a previous result obtained by an expansion in powers of $`m_\mathrm{t}`$ up to next-to-leading order was performed. Here the effects of the top/bottom and light-fermion contributions were studied separately and found to yield a contribution of a few MeV to the prediction of $`M_\mathrm{W}`$ each.

Furthermore, the remaining theoretical uncertainties due to unknown higher orders were discussed and an overall uncertainty of the W-boson mass prediction of $`6`$ MeV was estimated for light Higgs-boson masses. A careful treatment of the theoretical uncertainties proved to be important for precision tests of the Standard Model. The situation for present experimental uncertainties was contrasted to the capabilities of aspired future colliders.

As an additional result, the Higgs-mass dependence of the purely bosonic electroweak two-loop contributions was computed, so that the only yet missing piece of the complete two-loop calculation for $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$, i. e. muon decay, is a constant ($`M_\mathrm{H}`$-independent) contribution. The numerical impact of the bosonic two-loop corrections on the Higgs-mass dependence of the $`M_\mathrm{W}`$-prediction is relatively small, in accordance with our estimates for theoretical uncertainties.

## Acknowledgements

We thank D. Bardin, P. Gambino, M. Grünewald, S. Heinemeyer, T. Hurth and G. Quast for useful discussions and communications. We also thank D. Bardin for cooperation in implementing our result in Zfitter. This work was supported in part by the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00149 Physics at Colliders.

We are grateful to M. Awramik and M. Czakon for detailed comparisons with their results , which helped to debug our computation. After correcting our calculation, there is now perfect agreement between both results.

## Appendix

In the appendix the explicit Feynman rules for the ghost interactions in the Standard Model are listed. In the vertices all particles are considered as incoming. The following expressions comply with a non-renormalisation of the gauge-fixing sector and the use of a linear $`R_\xi `$ gauge, introducing the (renormalised) gauge parameters $`\xi ^\gamma ,\xi ^\mathrm{Z},\xi ^\mathrm{W}`$ according to eqs. (35)–(37). Counterterms in the one-loop approximation are included. The Feynman rules for the other sectors of the theory can be found e. g. in Ref. .

|  | ghost propagator | $`={\displaystyle \frac{i\left(\xi ^\mathrm{G}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}}{k^2\xi ^\mathrm{G}M_\mathrm{G}^2}}`$ |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\overline{u}^\gamma u^\gamma :\frac{i\left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}}{k^2}& & \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^\mathrm{Z}:\frac{i\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}}{k^2\xi ^\mathrm{Z}M_\mathrm{Z}^2}& & \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm :\frac{i\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}}{k^2\xi ^\mathrm{W}M_\mathrm{W}^2}\end{array}$$
(80)
|  | $`\overline{G}G`$ counterterm | $`=i\left(C_1k^2C_2\right)`$ |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \overline{u}^\gamma u^\gamma :C_1& =\left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \gamma }\right)\hfill & \hfill C_2& =0\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\gamma u^\mathrm{Z}:C_1& =\left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\right)\hfill & \hfill C_2& =0\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^\gamma :C_1& =\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }\right)\hfill & \hfill C_2& =0\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^\mathrm{Z}:C_1& =\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{ZZ}}\right)\hfill & \hfill C_2& =\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(M_\mathrm{Z}^2\left(1\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\chi \right)+\frac{1}{2}\delta M_\mathrm{Z}^2\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm :C_1& =\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{W}\right)\hfill & \hfill C_2& =\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(M_\mathrm{W}^2\left(1\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\varphi \right)+\frac{1}{2}\delta M_\mathrm{W}^2\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(81)
|  | $`\overline{G}_1G_2V`$ coupling | $`=iek_\mu C`$ |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm \gamma :C=& \pm \left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \gamma }\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{W}\frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{2s_\mathrm{W}}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm Z:C=& \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{ZZ}}\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{W}\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}^2}\frac{s_\mathrm{W}}{2c_\mathrm{W}}\delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\gamma u^{}W^\pm :C=& \pm \left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{W}\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\gamma \gamma }\right)\pm \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{2s_\mathrm{W}}\left(\xi ^\gamma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\delta Z^{\gamma \mathrm{Z}}\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^{}W^\pm :C=& \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{W}\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^{\mathrm{ZZ}}\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}^2}\right)\frac{1}{2}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\delta Z^{\mathrm{Z}\gamma }\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\gamma W^\pm :C=& \left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\mathrm{Z}W^\pm :C=& \pm \frac{c_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}^2}\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(82)
|  | $`\overline{G}_1G_2S`$ coupling | $`=ieC`$ |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^\mathrm{Z}H:C=& \frac{1}{2s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}}M_\mathrm{Z}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e+\frac{s_\mathrm{W}^2c_\mathrm{W}^2}{c_\mathrm{W}^2}\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{H}\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\chi \right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm H:C=& \frac{1}{2s_\mathrm{W}}M_\mathrm{W}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\mathrm{H}\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\varphi \right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\pm \chi :C=& i\frac{1}{2s_\mathrm{W}}M_\mathrm{W}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\chi \frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\varphi \right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\mathrm{Z}u^{}\varphi ^\pm :C=& \frac{1}{2s_\mathrm{W}}M_\mathrm{Z}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{Z}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}+\frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\varphi \frac{1}{2}\delta Z^\chi \right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\gamma \varphi ^\pm :C=& M_\mathrm{W}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+\delta Z_e\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{u}^\pm u^\mathrm{Z}\varphi ^\pm :C=& \frac{s_\mathrm{W}^2c_\mathrm{W}^2}{2s_\mathrm{W}c_\mathrm{W}}M_\mathrm{W}\left(\xi ^\mathrm{W}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+dZe1+\frac{1}{\left(s_\mathrm{W}^2c_\mathrm{W}^2\right)c_\mathrm{W}^2}\frac{\delta s_\mathrm{W}}{s_\mathrm{W}}\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(83)


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# An Improved Quantum Scheduling Algorithm

## 1 Introduction

Alice & Bob each have a calendar of their appointments for $`N`$ slots of time. They need to find a common slot for a meeting when each of them is available. How many bits of information do they need to exchange? This problem is also known as the intersection problem, i.e. the problem is to find a common $`1`$ in two remotely located strings.

It has been shown that if Alice & Bob were exchanging classical bits, they would need to exchange $`O(N)`$bits of information  (the intuition is that if they were to try to find the answer while exchanging fewer bits, they might leave out information about the common slot).

It was a surprising result when Buhrman, Cleve & Wigderson (BCW)  discovered a quantum mechanical technique through which Alice & Bob could identify the common slot while exchanging only $`O(\sqrt{N}\mathrm{log}N)`$ qubits. This was surprising because there is a well known result called Holevo’s Theorem which proves that a single qubit cannot carry more than one bit of classical information . It takes some thought to realize that the BCW result does not violate Holevo’s Theorem since Alice & Bob could not use it to transmit $`N`$ bits of information. What the BCW algorithm accomplishes is to reduce the communication complexity of the scheduling problem from $`O(N)`$ classical bits to only $`O(\sqrt{N}\mathrm{log}N)`$ quantum mechanical qubits. This was the first significant reduction in communication complexity achieved through quantum communication.

The basis of the algorithm of BCW was to carry out a quantum search on the $`N`$ possible slots for the common slot. Since Alice & Bob each have part of the information, this requires a distributed search with the qubits being transferred back and forth as described in section 3. This requires $`O(\sqrt{N}\mathrm{log}N)`$ qubits of communication which is considerably fewer than the $`O(N)`$ qubits of classical communication that would be required.

As described above, the number of qubits of communication required is approximately the square-root of the number of bits of classical communication required in the most general case. However, in the special case when the string of either Alice or Bob has few 1s, it is possible to design a classical algorithm requiring much less communication. For example, if Alice’s string has $`ϵN`$ 1s, she could encode the position of these using $`ϵN\mathrm{log}_2N`$ bits and send these to Bob who could then find the common slot. This paper gives a modification to the BCW algorithm so that it gives a square-root advantage over the best classical algorithm even when the strings of Alice or Bob have few 1s.

## 2 The Quantum Search Algorithm

In order to describe the algorithm of BCW, we first need to describe the quantum search algorithm . There are only three operations required by the search algorithm: $`W,I_{\overline{0}},I_t.`$These are described below.

$`I_t`$ is a selective inversion of the target state. This can be achieved provided we have a quantum mechanical black box that can evaluate whether or not a given state is the target state - note that this does not need any a priori knowledge of which the target state is. See LABEL:brassard for a quantum circuit that accomplishes a selective phase inversion of $`t`$ using such a black box.

$`I_{\overline{0}}`$ is the selective inversion of the $`\overline{0}`$ state (i.e. the state in which all qubits are $`0`$). $`W`$ is the Walsh-Hadamard Transformation.

The quantum search algorithm showed that, if we start from $`\overline{0}`$ and carry out $`\frac{\pi \sqrt{N}}{4}`$ repetitions of the sequence of operations $`I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW,`$ followed by $`W`$, we reach the $`t`$ state with certainty. Equivalently:

$$W\underset{\frac{\pi \sqrt{N}}{4}repetitions}{\underset{}{\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW\right)\mathrm{}\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW\right)\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW\right)\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW\right)}}|\overline{0}=|t$$

A measurement after this will reveal which the $`t`$ state is. Note that this requires only $`O(\sqrt{N})`$ operations.

## 3 Distributed Searching

In the scheduling problem, part of the information is with Alice & part of it with Bob. The insight of BCW was to observe that the quantum search algorithm could still be carried out by transferring the qubits back & forth. There are only three operations required by the search algorithm: $`W,I_{\overline{0}},I_t.`$ The first two are independent of the $`t`$ state and can be carried out anywhere ($`I_{\overline{0}}`$ requires all qubits to be available together).

$`I_t`$ clearly depends on the solution the information about which is with Alice & Bob. It requires that both Alice’s and Bob’s schedules be satisfied. A modification of the circuit shown in the figure in the previous section accomplishes this. It requires part of the function to be evaluated by Alice & the resulting qubits to be passed to Bob who evaluates the rest of the function. This ensures that both Alice’s & Bob’s functions evaluate to 1. Please see  for details.

## 4  <br>Amplitude Amplification

A few years after the invention of the quantum search algorithm, it was generalized to a much larger class of applications known as the amplitude amplification algorithms  (similar results are independently proved in ). In these algorithms, the amplitude produced in a particular state by a unitary operation $`U`$, can be amplified by successively repeating the sequence of operations: $`Q=I_sU^{}I_tU`$. It was proved that if we start from the $`s`$ state and repeat the operation sequence $`I_sU^{}I_tU,`$ $`\eta `$ times followed by a single repetition of $`U`$, then the amplitude in the $`t`$ state becomes approximately $`\eta U_{ts}`$ (provided $`\eta U_{ts}1`$). Also, if we start from $`s`$ and carry out $`\frac{\pi }{4\left|U_{ts}\right|}`$ repetitions of $`Q`$ followed by a single repetition of $`U,`$ we reach $`t`$ with certainty.

The quantum search algorithm was a particular case of amplitude amplification with the Walsh-Hadamard Transformation being the $`U`$ operation and $`s`$ being the $`\overline{0}`$ state. For any $`t`$, $`\left|U_{ts}\right|=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}.`$ It follows from the amplitude amplification principle that if we start from $`\overline{0}`$ and carry out $`\frac{\pi \sqrt{N}}{4}`$ repetitions of the sequence of operations $`I_{\overline{0}}WI_tW,`$ followed by $`W`$, we reach the $`t`$ state with certainty.

In this paper we use the amplitude amplification principle for developing a new scheduling algorithm. This is achieved by designing a sequence of transformations that produce an amplitude of $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{ϵN}}`$ in the $`t`$ state and much smaller amplitudes in other states while requiring $`\mathrm{log}_2N`$ qubits of communication. Therefore by the amplitude amplification principle, in $`\frac{\pi }{4}\sqrt{ϵN}`$ repetitions of this transformation, we can concentrate most of the amplitude in the $`t`$ state.

## 5 Improved Scheduling Algorithm

The following algorithm assumes a single common 1 in the two strings. The algorithm is easily extended to the situation with multiple common 1s using standard approaches, e.g. . Alice & Bob each count the number of 1’s in their strings (or equivalently the number of slots they are each available for). They exchange this information using $`\mathrm{log}_2N`$ bits of communication. The person with the fewer 1s (say Alice) starts.

Assume that Alice has $`ϵN`$ 1’s in her $`N`$ bit string. She starts with a register of $`\mathrm{log}_2N`$ qubits that encode the $`N`$ slots. She starts with these in the $`\overline{0}`$ state. Next consider the transformation consisting of $`\frac{\pi }{4}\sqrt{ϵN}`$ applications of the quantum search operator $`I_{\overline{0}}WI_AW,`$ followed by $`W`$ (here $`I_A`$ inverts the amplitude of each of the states when Alice is available). This produces a superposition concentrated in states in which she is available. Denote this composite transformation that transforms $`\overline{0}`$ into the superposition corresponding to her available slots, by $`U`$, i.e.

$$UW\underset{\frac{\pi \sqrt{ϵN}}{4}repetitions}{\underset{}{\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_AW\right)\mathrm{}\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_AW\right)\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_AW\right)\left(I_{\overline{0}}WI_AW\right)}}$$

Note that $`U^{}`$ consists of the application of the adjoints of the operations that constitute $`U`$ but in the opposite order, i.e.

$$U^{^{}}W\underset{\frac{\pi \sqrt{ϵN}}{4}repetitions}{\underset{}{\left(I_AWI_{\overline{0}}W\right)\mathrm{}\left(I_AWI_{\overline{0}}W\right)\left(I_AWI_{\overline{0}}W\right)\left(I_AWI_{\overline{0}}W\right)}}$$

Next apply the following sequence of transformations:

$$U\underset{\frac{\pi \sqrt{ϵN}}{4}repetitions}{\underset{}{\left(I_{\overline{0}}U^{^{}}I_BU\right)\mathrm{}\left(I_{\overline{0}}U^{^{}}I_BU\right)\left(I_{\overline{0}}U^{^{}}I_BU\right)}}|\overline{0}$$

Note that this needs only $`\frac{\pi \sqrt{ϵN}}{2}\mathrm{log}_2N`$ qubits of communication since Alice can carry out all but the $`I_B`$ operations for which the register needs to be sent to Bob and returned. The number of times the register needs to be sent to Bob is equal to the number of $`I_B`$ operations.

It follows by the amplitude amplification principle that if we start from $`|\overline{0},`$then after $`\frac{\pi }{4_B\left|U_{B\overline{0}}\right|^2}`$ repetitions of the $`I_BUI_{\overline{0}}U^{^{}}`$ followed by a single application of $`U`$, all the amplitude is concentrated in the states inverted by the $`I_B`$ operation (i.e. the set of states that satisfy Bob’s schedule) with amplitude in each $`B`$ state proportional to $`U_{B\overline{0}}`$. The amplitude $`U_{B\overline{0}}`$, is 0 except in the states that satisfy Alice’s schedule. Therefore the superposition is entirely concentrated in states that satisfy both Alice’s & Bob’s schedule. For convenience we have assumed a single common slot, the method of  easily generalizes it to multiple common slots.

## 6 Other Tradeoffs & Applications

The algorithm of this paper requires $`O(\sqrt{ϵN})`$ cycles, each cycle requires $`O\left(\sqrt{\frac{N}{ϵN}}\right)`$ steps of computation (assuming the busier person has $`ϵN`$ openings and each selective inversion takes $`O(1)`$ steps) - which gives $`O(\sqrt{N})`$ total steps of computation while requiring only $`O\left(\sqrt{ϵN}\right)`$ communication (ignoring log factors). This is in comparison to the BCW  algorithm that requires $`O\left(\sqrt{N}\right)`$steps of computation and $`O\left(\sqrt{N}\right)`$communication. As described above, this gives our algorithm an advantage when the communication cost is significant. It is interesting to speculate about the situation when Alice’s & Bob’s selective inversions take different numbers of steps - it might be possible to design algorithms that are more efficient even in terms of computation, or in terms of some combination of computation and communication.

Alternatively, one can extend this method to solve problems where the problem is easiest posed as an intersection of two different queries, one of which is more selective than the other.