Spin Formalism and Applications to New Physics Searches

An introduction to spin techniques in particle physics is given. Among the topics covered are: helicity formalism and its applications to the decay and scattering of spin-1/2 and spin-1 particles, techniques for evaluating helicity amplitudes (including projection operator methods and the spinor helicity method), and density matrix techniques. The utility of polarization and spin correlations for untangling new physics beyond the Standard Model at future colliders such as the LHC and a high energy e+e− linear collider is then considered. A number of detailed examples are explored including the search for low-energy supersymmetry, a non-minimal Higgs boson sector, and new gauge bosons beyond the W± and Z. To appear in the Proceedings of the 21st SLAC Summer Institute on Particle Physics: Spin Structure in High Energy Processes SLAC, Stanford, CA, 26 July—6 August 1993. ⋆ Work supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, grant number DE-FG0392ER40689 and in part by the National Science Foundation, NSF grant #PHY89-04035. † Permanent address.