Oblique correction

In particle physics, an oblique correction refers to a particular type of radiative correction to the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. Oblique corrections are defined in four-fermion scattering processes, ( +  →  +  ) at the CERN LEP collider. There are three classes of radiative corrections to these processes: vacuum polarization corrections, vertex corrections, and box corrections. The vacuum polarization corrections are referred to as oblique corrections, since they only affect the mixing and propagation of the gauge bosons and they do not depend on which type of fermions appear in the initial or final states. (The vertex and box corrections, which depend on the identity of the initial and final state fermions, are called nonoblique corrections.)