Polar angle dependence of the longitudinal polarization of quarks produced in e+e−-annihilation

Abstract

We calculate one-loop radiative QCD corrections to the three polarized and unpolarized structure functions that determine the beam-quark polar angle dependence of the longitudinal polarization of light and heavy quarks produced in e⁺e⁻-annihilations. We present analytical and numerical results for the longitudinal polarization and its polar angle dependence. We discuss in some detail the zero-mass limit of our results and the role of the anomalous spin-flip contributions to the polarization observables in the zero-mass limit. Our discussion includes transverse and longitudinal beam polarization effects.