ON-SHELL W-PAIR PRODUCTION IN THE TEV RANGE

Based on the existing exact O(alpha) corrections to the differential cross-section for on-shell W-pair production derive a high-energy approximation valid for energies much higher than all particle masses. In the angular range -0.9 < cos theta < 0.9 this approximation reproduces the full virtual and soft-photonic O(alpha) result essentially to better than 1% for energies above 1 TeV and better than 0.1% above 10 TeV. Taking only the dominant terms of this high-energy approximation into account the resulting approximation deviates from the full result by about 3%. Finally an interpretation in terms of running couplings is given for the fermionic contribution to the approximation.