Effective field theory of precision electroweak physics at one loop

The one loop effects of two dimension-six operators on gauge boson self-energies are computed within an effective field theory framework. These self-energies are translated into effects on precision electroweak observables, and bounds are obtained on the operator coefficients. The effective field theory framework allows for the divergences that arise in the loop calculations to be properly handled, and for unambiguous bounds on the coefficients to be obtained. We find that the coefficients are only weakly bounded, in contrast to previous calculations that obtained much stronger bounds. We argue that the results of these previous calculations are specious. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.