Effects of Non-Standard Tri-linear Couplings in Photon-Photon Collisions: I. γ γ to W^+ W^-

The effect of anomalous couplings in $\gamma \gamma \to W^+ W^-$ is studied for different energies of the $\gamma \gamma$ mode of the next linear collider. The analysis based on the maximum likelihood method exploits the variables in the four-fermion semi-leptonic final state. Polarised differential cross sections based on the complete set of diagrams for these channels with the inclusion of anomalous couplings are used and compared to an approximation based on $\gamma \gamma \to W^+ W^-$ with full spin correlations. To critically compare these results with those obtained in $e^+ e^-$ we perform an analysis based on the complete calculation of the four-fermion semi-leptonic final state. The anomalous couplings that we consider are derived from the next-to-leading order operators in the non-linear realisation of symmetry breaking.