The production of three gauge bosons in high-energy collisions - in particular in view of a next-linear collider with center of mass energies in the TeV range - offers an unique opportunity to probe the Standard Model (SM) of today's particle physics. In this thesis we pay particular attention to the electroweak sector of the theory. We investigate the gauge structure {i. e. possible deviations from the SM predictions of gauge boson self-interactions manifest e. g. in anomalous quartic gauge boson couplings and Radiation zeros) as well as electroweak radiative corrections in order to improve theoretical predictions for SM processes. Quartic gauge boson couplings can be regarded as a direct window on the sector of electroweak symmetry breaking. We have studied the impact of three such anomalous couplings on the processes e+e(^-) → WWγ, ZZγ and Zγγ at LEP2 and a future linear collider. In certain high-energy scattering processes involving charged particles and the emission of one or more photons, the scattering amplitude vanishes for particular configurations of the final state particles. The fact that gauge symmetry is a vital ingredient for the cancellation to occur means that radiation zeros can be used to probe physics beyond the standard model. For example anomalous electroweak gauge boson couplings destroy the delicate cancellation necessary for the zero to occur. We have studied the process qq → WWγ. To match the expected experimental precision at future linear colliders, improved theoretical predictions beyond next-to-leading order are required. By choosing an appropriate gauge, we have developed a formalism to calculate such corrections for arbitrary electroweak processes. As an example we consider here the processes e(^+)e → f f and e(^+)e(^-) → W(^+)(_T)W(^-)(_T), W(^+)(_L)W(^-)(_L) and study the perturbative structure of the electroweak Sudakov logarithms by means of an explicit two-loop calculation. In this way we investigate how the Standard Model, with its mass gap between the photon and Z boson in the neutral sector, compares to unbroken theories like QED and QCD. We observe that the two-loop corrections are consistent with an exponentiation of the one-loop corrections. In this sense the Standard Model behaves like an unbroken theory at high energies.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:14:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 787601 bytes, checksum: dde905a364661fdc51ee261d059b2905 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / We build a gauge model based on the SU(3)C ⊗ SU(4)L ⊗ U(1)X symmetry where the scalar spectrum needed to generate gauge boson and fermion masses is reduced to a lesser content than usually assumed in literature. In order to guarantee that such a reduction is self-consistent, we first show that the model possesses a Landau pole at the scale of few TeV. In fact, the scalar spectrum reduction is possible because the fermion masses that do not come from Yukawa interactions, can be suitably generated by effective operators, supressed by a few TeV scale instead of a too high energy scale (like Planck or usual grand unified theories scale). In this way we are able to keep only three scalar quartets out of the original four quartets and a decouplet, which are in the right amount to engender the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the model to the electroweak standard model and subsequently to the U(1)QED gauge group. This reduced spectrum enables a simpler framework when developing the phenomenology of such model. / Construímos um modelo de gauge baseado na simetria SU(3)C ⊗ SU(4)L ⊗ U(1)X, no qual o espectro escalar necessário para gerar as massas dos bósons de gauge e dos férmions é reduzido para um conteúdo menor do que geralmente empregado na literatura. A fim de garantir que tal redução é autoconsistente, primeiramente mostramos que o modelo possui um polo de Landau na escala de poucos TeV. De fato, a redução do espectro escalar é possível porque as massas dos férmions que não advêm das interações de Yukawa podem ser geradas adequadamente por operadores efetivos, suprimidos por uma escala de poucos TeV em vez de uma escala de altas energias (como de Planck ou de Teorias de Grande Unificação usuais). Desta forma, somos capazes de manter apenas três quadrupletos de escalares afora os quatro quadrupletos originais e um decupleto, que é o número correto para engendrar a quebra espontânea de simetria do modelo para o modelo padrão eletrofraco e, posteriormente, para o grupo de gauge U(1)QED. Este espectro reduzido permite uma estrutura mais simples quando a fenomenologia de tal modelo for desenvolvida.