Angular correlations of lepton pairs from vector boson and top quark decays in Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

We explain how angular correlations in leptonic decays of vector bosons and top quarks can be included in Monte Carlo parton showers, in particular those matched to NLO QCD computations. We consider the production of $n$ pairs of leptons, originating from the decays of $n$ electroweak vector bosons or of $n$ top quarks, in the narrow-width approximation. In the latter case, the information on the $n$ $b$ quarks emerging from the decays is also retained. We give results of implementing this procedure in MC@NLO