Loop Calculations with Anomalous Gauge Boson Couplings

Abstract

Analyses which use loop calculations to put constraints on anomalous trilinear gauge boson couplings (TGC's) often give bounds which are much too stringent. The reason has nothing to do with gauge invariance, in contrast to the recent claims of de Rujula et. al., since the lagrangians used in these calculations ARE gauge invariant, with the SU(2)L X U(1)Y symmetry nonlinearly realized. We trace the true cause of the problem to the improper interpretation of cutoffs in the calculation. The point is that the cutoff dependence of a loop integral does not necessarily reflect the true dependence on the heavy physics scale M. We illustrate that, if done carefully, one finds that the true constraints on anomalous TGC's are much weaker.