MEASURING THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF THE W-BOSON IN HEAVY-ION COLLIDERS

We discuss the possibility of measuring the magnetic dipole moment mu-W and the electric quadrupole moment Q(W) of the weak gauge bosons at heavy-ion colliders. This measurement amounts to a test of the gauge structure of the standard model. We show that the total cross section for W-pair production via gamma-gamma fusion is very sensitive to mu-W and Q(W), thus allowing a precise determination of their values.