Drell-Yan Cross Section Research Articles

Study of intrinsic-kT in the Parton Branching Method

The work presented here focuses on the production of Drell-Yan lepton pairs in hadron-hadron collisions with very low transverse momentum which is sensitive to the contribution from the non-perturbative transverse motion of partons inside hadrons as well as to the multiple soft gluon emissions which have to be resumed. To study the two contributions, we use Parton Branching Method which describes the evolution of transverse momentum dependent parton distributions and provides very precise predictions for inclusive observables such as the Drell–Yan cross section as a function of transverse momentum. In this study, we tune a parameter that describes the internal transverse motion of partons within hadron (intrinsic-kT) depending on the soft gluon contribution which is varied applying a lower limit to the transverse momentum of the emitted parton in branching up to 2 GeV. It will be shown that the parameter presented by the width of the Gaussian distribution increases with the minimal transverse momentum. This means that by reducing the contribution of soft gluons, more intense internal transverse motion is required (larger intrinsic-kT) to describe experimental data. Moreover, it was observed that the value of the intrinsic-kT increases with the collision energy and such a trend is more pronounced when the minimum transverse momentum of the parton at the branching is higher.

Top-down and bottom-up: Studying the SMEFT beyond leading order in $1/\Lambda^2$

In order to assess the relevance of higher order terms in the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT) expansion we consider four new physics models and their impact on the Drell Yan cross section. Of these four, one scalar model has no effect on Drell Yan, a model of fermions while appearing to generate a momentum expansion actually belongs to the vacuum expectation value expansion and so has a nominal effect on the process. The remaining two, a leptoquark and a Z'Z′ model exhibit a momentum expansion. After matching these models to dimension-ten we study the how the inclusion of dimension-eight and dimension-ten operators in hypothetical effective field theory fits to the full ultraviolet models impacts fits. We do this both in the top-down approach, and in a very limited approximation to the bottom up approach of the SMEFT to infer the impact of a fully general fit to the SMEFT. We find that for the more weakly coupled models a strictly dimension-six fit is sufficient. In contrast when stronger interactions or lighter masses are considered the inclusion of dimension-eight operators becomes necessary. However, their Wilson coefficients perform the role of nuisance parameters with best fit values which can differ statistically from the theory prediction. In the most strongly coupled theories considered (which are already ruled out by data) the inclusion of dimension-ten operators allows for the measurement of dimension-eight operator coefficients consistent with theory predictions and the dimension-ten operator coefficients then behave as nuisance parameters. We also study the impact of the inclusion of partial next order results, such as dimension-six squared contributions, and find that in some cases they improve the convergence of the series while in others they hinder it.

Impact of SeaQuest data on PDF fits at large x

We evaluate the impact of recent SeaQuest (FNAL-E906 experiment) data on dimuon production in proton-deuteron and proton-proton collisions on parton distribution functions (PDFs). We find these data in a good agreement with the QCD predictions based on PDFs fitted to the Tevatron and LHC data on forward production of W and Z bosons. As a basis for this study we use the ABMP16 PDF fits and show that they turn out to be compatible with the SeaQuest data, and that these data have constraining power, allowing to reduce the uncertainties on the isospin asymmetry of the light-sea-quark distribution at large longitudinal momentum fraction x. We discuss the nuclear corrections needed to describe the deuteron and show that they affect the theoretical description of the proton-deuteron Drell–Yan cross section at the level of mathcal {O}(0.5{-}1)%. We also comment on the compatibility of the SeaQuest results with other state-of-the-art PDF fits and show that these data are in clear disagreement with models proposing an SU(3)-flavor symmetric quark sea. Finally, we perform a comparison between the second Mellin moments of the light-quark PDFs and recent results from various lattice QCD computations, which demonstrates good compatibility, albeit limited by the uncertainties inherent in current lattice QCD simulations.

HighPT: A tool for high-pT Drell-Yan tails beyond the standard model

HighPT is a Mathematica package for the analysis of high-energy data of semileptonic transitions at hadron colliders. It allows to compute high-pT tail observables for semileptonic processes, i.e. Drell-Yan cross sections, for dilepton and monolepton final states at the LHC. These observables can be calculated at tree level within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, including the relevant operators up to dimension eight to ensure a consistent description of the cross section including terms of O(Λ−4) in the cutoff scale Λ. For New Physics models with new mediators that can be resolved at LHC energies, HighPT can also account for the full propagation effects of these new bosonic states at tree level. Using the available data from the high-pT tails in the relevant LHC run-II searches by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, HighPT can also construct the corresponding likelihoods for all possible flavors of the leptonic final states. As an illustration, we derive and compare constraints on Wilson coefficients at different orders in the Effective Field Theory expansion, and we investigate lepton flavor violation for the S3 leptoquark model. The HighPT code is publicly available at ▪. Program summaryProgram title:HighPTCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/zh5yx6j4xj.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/HighPT/HighPTLicensing provisions: MIT licenseProgramming language: MathematicaNature of problem: Constraining New Physics scenarios with high-pT Drell-Yan data.Solution method: We present the first tool allowing to extract bounds, computed at leading order, on semileptonic transitions in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, including operators up to dimension eight, and in explicit New Physics models.

Measurement of Target Spin (in)dependent Asymmetries in Dimuon Production in Pion-Nucleon Collisions at COMPASS

The exploration of the transverse spin structure of the nucleon is one of the main topics of the COMPASS phase-II experiment. In 2015 and 2018 COMPASS performed Drell–Yan (DY) measurements using a 190 GeV \pmb{\pi^-}𝛑− beam interacting with a transversely polarized NH\pmb{_{3}}3 target and unpolarized W target. The azimuthal asymmetries in DY with transversely polarized NH_{3}3 target are sensitive to various transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions. Preliminary results on the Sivers asymmetry are consistent with the QCD prediction for a sign-change of Sivers functions in DY. The angular coefficients \pmb{\lambda}𝛌, \pmb{\mu}𝛍 and \pmb{\nu}𝛎 that describe the unpolarized part of the DY cross section have been extracted from the data collected with W target. The preliminary results on the angular coefficients indicate the violation of the Lam–Tung relation, consistent with the observation in earlier DY experiments with pion beams.

Dilepton Rapidity Distribution in Drell-Yan Production to Third Order in QCD.

We compute for the first time the lepton-pair rapidity distribution in the photon-mediated Drell-Yan process to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The calculation is based on the q_{T}-subtraction method, suitably extended to this order for quark-antiquark initiated Born processes. Our results display sizeable QCD corrections at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order over the full rapidity region and provide a fully independent confirmation of the recent results for the total Drell-Yan cross section at this order.

Global QCD Analysis of Pion Parton Distributions with Threshold Resummation.

We perform the first global QCD analysis of pion valence, sea quark, and gluon distributions within a Bayesian MonteCarlo framework with threshold resummation on Drell-Yan cross sections at next-to-leading log accuracy. Exploring various treatments of resummation, we find that the large-x asymptotics of the valence quark distribution ∼(1-x)^{β_{v}} can differ significantly, with β_{v} ranging from ≈1 to >2.5 at the input scale. Regardless of the specific implementation, however, the resummation induced redistribution of the momentum between valence quarks and gluons boosts the total momentum carried by gluons to ≈40%, increasing the gluon contribution to the pion mass to ≈40 MeV.

Nuclear parton distribution functions with uncertainties in a general mass variable flavor number scheme

In this article we obtain a new set of nuclear parton distribution functions (nuclear PDFs) at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order accuracy in perturbative QCD. The common nuclear deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) data analyzed in our study are complemented by the available charged-current neutrino DIS data with nuclear targets and data from Drell-Yan cross-section measurements for several nuclear targets. In addition, the most recent DIS data from the Jefferson Lab CLAS and Hall C experiments are also added to our data sample. For these specific datasets, we consider the impact of target mass corrections and higher twist effects which are expected to be important in the region of large $x$ and intermediate-to-low $Q^2$. Our analysis is based on a publicly available open-source tool {\tt APFEL}, which has been modified to be applicable for our analysis of nuclear PDFs. Heavy quark contributions to nuclear DIS are considered within the framework of the {\tt FONLL} general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme. The most recent {\tt CT18} PDFs are used as baseline proton PDFs. The uncertainties of nuclear PDFs are determined using the standard Hessian approach. The results of our global QCD analysis are compared with existing nuclear PDF sets and with the fitted cross-sections, for which our set of nuclear PDFs provides a very good description.

Towards the three-dimensional parton structure of the pion: Integrating transverse momentum data into global QCD analysis

We perform a new Monte Carlo QCD analysis of pion parton distribution functions, including, for the first time, transverse momentum dependent pion-nucleus Drell-Yan cross sections together with $p_{\rm T}$-integrated Drell-Yan and leading neutron electroproduction data from HERA. We assess the sensitivity of the Monte Carlo fits to kinematic cuts, factorization scale, and parametrization choice, and we discuss the impact of the various datasets on the pion's quark and gluon distributions. This study provides the necessary step towards the simultaneous analysis of collinear and transverse momentum dependent pion distributions and the determination of the pion's three-dimensional structure.

Origin and resummation of threshold logarithms in the lattice QCD calculations of PDFs

Many present lattice QCD approaches to calculate the parton distribution functions (PDFs) rely on a factorization formula or effective theory expansion of certain Euclidean matrix elements in boosted hadron states. In the quasi- and pseudo-PDF methods, the matching coefficient in the factorization or expansion formula includes large logarithms near the threshold, which arise from the subtle interplay of collinear and soft divergences of an underlying 3D momentum distribution. We use the standard prescription to resum such logarithms in the Mellin-moment space at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, which also accounts for the DGLAP evolution, and we show that it can suppress the PDF at large $x$. Unlike the deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan cross sections, the resummation formula is away from the Landau pole. We then apply our formulation to reanalyze the recent lattice results for the pion valence PDF, and find that within the current data sensitivity, the effect of threshold resummation is marginal for the accessible moments and the PDF at large $x$.

A new extraction of pion parton distributions in the statistical model

We present a new analysis to extract pion's parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the framework of the statistical model. Starting from the statistical model framework first developed for the spin-1/2 nucleon, we apply appropriate modifications taking into account the spin-0 nature of pion and the isospin and charge-conjugation symmetry properties. This results in a significant reduction of the number of parameters compared to a recent work to extract pion's PDFs. Using π−-induced Drell-Yan data to determine the parameters of this statistical model approach, we show that a good description of these experimental data with Next-to-Leading order QCD calculations can be obtained. Good agreement between the calculations and the π+/π− Drell-Yan cross section ratio data, not included in the global fit, has confirmed the predictive power of these new pion PDFs.

Transverse-momentum-dependent parton distribution functions from large-momentum effective theory

We show that transverse-momentum-dependent parton distribution functions (TMDPDFs), important non-perturbative quantities for describing the properties of hadrons in high-energy scattering processes such as Drell-Yan and semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering with observed small transverse momentum, can be obtained from Euclidean QCD calculations in the framework of large-momentum effective theory (LaMET). We present a LaMET factorization of the Euclidean quasi-TMDPDFs in terms of the physical TMDPDFs and off-light-cone soft function at leading order in 1/Pz expansion, with the perturbative matching coefficient satisfying a renormalization group equation. We also discuss the implementation in lattice QCD with finite-length gauge links as well as the rapidity-regularization-independent factorization for Drell-Yan cross section.

Drell-Yan Cross Section to Third Order in the Strong Coupling Constant.

We present phenomenological results for the inclusive cross section for the production of a lepton pair via virtual photon exchange at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. In line with the case of Higgs production, we find that the hadronic cross section receives corrections at the percent level, and the residual dependence on the perturbative scales is reduced. However, unlike in the Higgs case, we observe that the uncertainty band derived from scale variation is no longer contained in the band of the previous order.

Resummed Drell-Yan cross-section at N3LL

We present the resummed predictions for inclusive cross-section for Drell-Yan (DY) production as well as onshell Z, W± productions at next-to-next-to-next-to leading logarithmic (N3LL) accuracy. Using the standard techniques, we derive the N-dependent coefficients in the Mellin-N space as well as the N-independent constants and match the resummed result through the minimal prescription procedure with the fixed order results. In addition to the standard ln N exponentiation, we study the numerical impacts of exponentiating N-independent part of the soft function and the complete {overline{g}}_0 that appears in the resummed predictions in N space. All the analytical pieces needed in these different approaches are extracted from the soft-virtual part of the inclusive cross section known to next-to-next-to-next-to leading order (N3LO). We perform a detailed analysis on the scale and parton distribution function (PDF) variations and present predictions for 13 TeV LHC for the neutral Drell-Yan process as well as onshell charged and neutral vector boson productions.

Pion-nucleus induced Drell-Yan cross section in models inspired by light-front holography

We evaluate the cross section for the pion induced Drell-Yan process in two different models of the pion light-front wave function, inspired by light-front holographic approaches. We obtain the valence quark distribution functions in those models, which after QCD evolution, are consistent with the experimental data from the E-0615 experiment at Fermilab. Supplemented by the parton distribution functions of the target nuclei, we obtain the cross section consistent with the experimental data for the π− Nucleus →μ+μ−X Drell-Yan process.

Deuteron polarizations in the proton-deuteron Drell-Yan process for finding the gluon transversity

The gluon transversity distribution in the deuteron is defined by the matrix element between linearly-polarized deuteron states, and it could be investigated in proton-deuteron collisions in addition to lepton-deuteron scattering. The linear polarization of photon is often used, whereas it is rarely used for the spin-1 deuteron. Therefore, it is desirable to express deuteron-reaction cross sections in term of conventional deuteron spin polarizations for actual experimental measurements. In this work, we investigate how proton-deuteron Drell-Yan cross sections are expressed by the conventional polarizations for finding the gluon transversity distribution. In particular, we show that the gluon transversity can be measured in the proton-deuteron Drell-Yan process by taking the cross-section difference between the deuteron spin polarizations along the two-transverse axes. Since the gluon transversity does not exist for the spin-1/2 nucleons, a finite gluon transversity of the deuteron could indicate an "exotic" mechanism beyond the simple bound system of the nucleons in the deuteron. Therefore, the gluon transversity is an interesting and appropriate observable to shed light on a new hadronic mechanism in nuclei.

Gluon transversity in polarized proton-deuteron Drell-Yan process

Nucleon spin structure functions have been investigated mainly by longitudinally-polarized ones for finding the origin of the nucleon spin. Other types of spin structure functions are transversely-polarized ones. In particular, quark transversity distributions in the nucleons have very different properties from the longitudinally-polarized quark distribution functions, especially in scaling violation, because they are decoupled from the gluon transversity, due to the fact that they are helicity-flip (chiral-odd) distributions. Such studies are valuable for finding not only the origin of the nucleon spin but also a signature on physics beyond the standard model, because the electric dipole moment of the neutron is proportional to the transversity distributions. Now, there is experimental progress on the quark transversity distributions; however, there is no experimental information on gluon transversity. In fact, the gluon transversity does not exist for the spin-1/2 nucleon due to the helicity-conservation constraint. One needs a hadron with spin more than or equal to one, so that the helicity flip of two units is allowed. A stable spin-1 target is, for example, the deuteron for studying the gluon transversity. In this work, we propose a possibility for finding the gluon transversity at hadron-accelerator facilities, especially in the proton-deuteron Drell-Yan process with the linearly-polarized deuteron, by showing theoretical formalism and numerical results. We show the dependencies of the Drell-Yan cross section on the dimuon-mass squared $M_{\mu\mu}^{\,2}$, the dimuon transverse-momentum $q_T$, the dimuon rapidity $y$ in the center-of-momentum frame, and the magnitude of the gluon transversity $\Delta_T g$.

DYTurbo: fast predictions for Drell\u2013Yan processes

Drell–Yan lepton pair production processes are extremely important for standard model (SM) precision tests and for beyond the SM searches at hadron colliders. Fast and accurate predictions are essential to enable the best use of the precision measurements of these processes; they are used for parton density fits, for the extraction of fundamental parameters of the SM, and for the estimation of background processes in searches. This paper describes a new numerical program, DYTurbo, for the calculation of the QCD transverse-momentum resummation of Drell–Yan cross sections up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy combined with the fixed-order results at next-to-next-to-leading order (mathcal {O}(alpha _{mathrm {S}}^2)), including the full kinematical dependence of the decaying lepton pair with the corresponding spin correlations and the finite-width effects. The DYTurbo program is an improved reimplementation of the DYqT, DYRes and DYNNLO programs, which provides fast and numerically precise predictions through the factorisation of the cross section into production and decay variables, and the usage of quadrature rules based on interpolating functions for the integration over kinematic variables.

Measurement of the differential Drell-Yan cross section in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{mathrm{s}} = 13 TeV

Measurements of the differential cross section for the Drell-Yan process, based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment, are presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 2.8 (2.3) fb−1 in the dimuon (dielectron) channel. The total and fiducial cross section measurements are presented as a function of dilepton invariant mass in the range 15 to 3000 GeV, and compared with the perturbative predictions of the standard model. The measured differential cross sections are in good agreement with the theoretical calculations.

Pion induced Drell-Yan: the transverse momentum structure of the pion

We present an analysis of unpolarized Drell-Yan pair production in pion-nucleus scattering with a particular focus into the pion dynamics. The study consists in analyzing the effect of the partonic longitudinal and, especially, transverse distributions of the pion in a Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) framework, with Pauli-Villars regularization. In order to consistently take into account the QCD evolution effects, we have estimated the hadronic scale corresponding to the NJL model’s degrees of freedom through a minimization procedure at NLO: The NLO evolved pion distributions have been compared to rapidity differential DrellYan cross sections data. That hadronic scale so determined represents the only free parameter in our approach.The NJL transverse momentum PDF, evolved up to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, is then tested against the transverse momentum spectrum of dilepton pairs up to a transverse momentum of 2 GeV. We found a fair agreement with available pion-nucleus data. We find sizable evolution effects on the shape of the distributions and on the generated average transverse momentum of the dilepton pair.