QCD Radiative Corrections Research Articles

Next-to-Next-to-Leading-Order QCD Corrections to Pion Electromagnetic Form Factors.

We calculate the next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD radiative correction to the pion electromagnetic form factor with large momentum transfer. We explicitly verify the validity of the collinear factorization to two-loop order for this observable and obtain the respective IR-finite two-loop hard-scattering kernel in the closed form. The NNLO QCD correction turns out to be positive and significant. Incorporating this new ingredient of correction, we then make a comprehensive comparison between the finest theoretical predictions and numerous data for both space- and timelike pion form factors. Our phenomenological analysis provides a strong constraint on the second Gegenbauer moment of the pion light-cone distribution amplitude obtained from recent lattice QCD studies.

Relativistic corrections to ψ(nS)→ρπ exclusive decays and their role in the understanding of the ρπ -puzzle

We study relativistic corrections to exclusive $S$-wave charmonium decays into $\rho\pi$ and $\gamma\pi$ final states. The contribution of relative order $v^2$ and the set of associated higher order corrections are calculated using NRQCD and collinear factorisation framework. Numerical estimates show that the dominant effect is provided by the corrections of relative order $v^2$. The numerical values of these contributions are of the same order as the leading-order ones. These results suggest a scenario where the sum of relativistic and radiative QCD corrections could explain the $\rho\pi$-puzzle.

Soft-parton contributions to heavy-quark production at low transverse momentum

We consider QCD radiative corrections to the production of a heavy-quark pair in hadronic collisions. We present the computation of the soft-parton contributions at low transverse momentum of the heavy-quark pair up to second order in the QCD coupling αS. These results complete the evaluation at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) of the transverse-momentum resummation formula for this process. Moreover, they give all the ingredients that are needed for the NNLO implementation of the qT subtraction formalism for heavy-quark production. We discuss the details of the computation and we provide a code that can be used to obtain the relevant results in numerical form.

Anomalous Higgs boson couplings in weak boson fusion production at NNLO in QCD

The production of Higgs bosons in weak boson fusion has the second largest cross section among Higgs-production processes at the LHC. As such, this process plays an important role in detailed studies of Higgs interactions with vector bosons. In this paper we extend the available description of Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion by considering anomalous $HVV$ interactions and NNLO QCD radiative corrections at the same time. We find that, while leading order QCD predictions are too uncertain to allow for detailed studies of the anomalous couplings, NLO QCD results are sufficiently precise, most of the time. The NNLO QCD corrections alter the NLO QCD predictions only marginally, but their availability enhances the credibility of conclusions based on NLO QCD computations.

Signal-background interference effects in Higgs-mediated diphoton production beyond NLO

In this paper we consider signal-background interference effects in Higgs-mediated diphoton production at the LHC. After reviewing earlier works that show how to use these effects to constrain the Higgs boson total decay width, we provide predictions beyond NLO accuracy for the interference and related observables, and study the impact of QCD radiative corrections on the Higgs width determination. In particular, we use the so-called soft-virtual approximation to estimate interference effects at NNLO in QCD. The inclusion of these effects reduces the NNLO prediction for the total Higgs cross-section in the diphoton channel by about 1.7%. We study in detail the impact of QCD corrections on the Higgs-boson line-shape and its implications for the Higgs boson width extraction. In particular, we find that the shift of the Higgs resonance peak arising from interference effects gets reduced by about 30% with respect to the NLO prediction. Assuming an experimental resolution of about 150 textrm{MeV} on interference-induced modifications of the Higgs-boson line-shape, our NNLO analysis shows that one could constrain the Higgs-boson total width to about 10–20 times its Standard Model value.

Peculiarities of pancreatic dysfunction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

We consider the production of a Standard Model Higgs boson decaying to bottom quarks in association with a vector boson W±/Z in hadron collisions. We present a fully exclusive calculation of QCD radiative corrections both for the production cross section and for the Higgs boson decay rate up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy. Our calculation also includes the leptonic decay of the vector boson with finite-width effects and spin correlations. We consider typical kinematical cuts applied in the experimental analyses at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and we find that the full NNLO QCD corrections significantly decrease the accepted cross section and have a substantial impact on the shape of distributions. We point out that these additional effects are essential to obtain precise theoretical predictions to be compared with the LHC data.

NLO QCD and EW corrections to off-shell tZj production at the LHC

The production of a single top quark in association with a Z boson (tZj production) at the LHC is a relevant probe of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model as well as a window to possible new-physics effects. The growing experimental interest in performing differential measurements for this process demands an improved theoretical modelling in realistic fiducial regions. In this article we present an NLO-accurate tZj calculation that includes complete off-shell effects and spin correlations, combining QCD and electroweak radiative corrections to the LO signal. Integrated and differential cross sections are shown for a fiducial setup characterised by three charged leptons, two jets, and missing energy.

O(αs) perturbative and nonperturbative corrections to polarized semileptonic Λb decay distributions

In this paper we calculate first order radiative QCD corrections to the decay process $b\to cW^-(\to\ell^-\bar\nu_\ell)$ of a polarized bottom quark. Taking into account both the bottom and charm quark masses, the analytical expressions given in this paper allow for a detailed analysis of the differential decay rate of the polarized quark in dependence on the polar and azimuthal angles of the lepton pair and the angle of the polarization vector of the quark relative to the momentum direction of the $W$ boson. The results are given for different polarization states of the charged lepton. In addition, we calculated nonperturbative corrections and estimated their contribution.

RGE effects on the LFV scale from meson decays

We consider the lepton-flavor violating (LFV) lepton-quark dimension-6 operators and analyze their contributions to the LFV leptonic decays of vector, pseudoscalar, and scalar neutral mesons Mrightarrow ell _1 ell _2 as well as to mu (tau ) rightarrow ell ee, ell gamma gamma decays. These operators contribute to the purely leptonic processes via quark loop. On the basis of quark-hadron duality, we relate these loops to the appropriate meson-exchange contributions. In this way, we extract lower bounds on the individual scales of the studied LFV operators from the experimental and phenomenological limits on the leptonic decays of mesons and leptons. As a byproduct, we shall obtain new limits on the LFV leptonic decays of flavored mesons from the experimental bounds on the three-body lepton decays. We study the effects of QED and QCD radiative corrections to the LFV lepton-quark operators in question. We derive for them the one-loop matrix of the RGE evolution and examine its effect on the previously derived tree-level limits on these operators. We show that the QED corrections are particularly relevant due to operator mixing. Specifically, for some of them the limits on their individual LFV scales improve by up to 3 orders of magnitude.

NNLO QCD corrections to weak boson fusion Higgs boson production in the H → b overline{b} and H → WW* → 4l decay channels

We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion followed by its decay to a b overline{b} pair or to a pair of leptonically-decaying W bosons. Our calculation allows us to compute realistic fiducial cross sections and assess the impact of fiducial cuts applied to the Higgs boson decay products on the magnitude of QCD radiative corrections in weak boson fusion.

A comparative study of Higgs boson production from vector-boson fusion

The data taken in Run II at the Large Hadron Collider have started to probe Higgs boson production at high transverse momentum. Future data will provide a large sample of events with boosted Higgs boson topologies, allowing for a detailed understanding of electroweak Higgs boson plus two-jet production, and in particular the vector-boson fusion mode (VBF). We perform a detailed comparison of precision calculations for Higgs boson production in this channel, with particular emphasis on large Higgs boson transverse momenta, and on the jet radius dependence of the cross section. We study fixed-order predictions at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order QCD, and compare the results to NLO plus parton shower (NLOPS) matched calculations. The impact of the NNLO corrections on the central predictions is mild, with inclusive scale uncertainties of the order of a few percent, which can increase with the imposition of kinematic cuts. We find good agreement between the fixed-order and matched calculations in non-Sudakov regions, and the various NLOPS predictions also agree well in the Sudakov regime. We analyze backgrounds to VBF Higgs boson production stemming from associated production, and from gluon-gluon fusion. At high Higgs boson transverse momenta, the ∆yjj and/or mjj cuts typically used to enhance the VBF signal over background lead to a reduced efficiency. We examine this effect as a function of the jet radius and using different definitions of the tagging jets. QCD radiative corrections increase for all Higgs production modes with increasing Higgs boson pT, but the proportionately larger increase in the gluon fusion channel results in a decrease of the gluon-gluon fusion background to electroweak Higgs plus two jet production upon requiring exclusive two-jet topologies. We study this effect in detail and contrast in particular a central jet veto with a global jet multiplicity requirement.

{t {{bar{t}}}H} production at NNLO: the flavour off-diagonal channels

We consider QCD radiative corrections to the associated production of a heavy-quark pair (Q{{bar{Q}}}) with a generic colourless system F at hadron colliders. We discuss the resummation formalism for the production of the Q{{bar{Q}}}F system at small values of its total transverse momentum q_T. We present the results of the corresponding resummation coefficients at next-to-leading and, partly, next-to-next-to-leading order. The perturbative expansion of the resummation formula leads to the explicit ingredients that can be used to apply the q_T subtraction formalism to fixed-order calculations for this class of processes. We use the q_T subtraction formalism to perform a fully differential perturbative computation for the production of a top-antitop quark pair and a Higgs boson. At next-to-leading order we compare our results with those obtained with established subtraction methods and we find complete agreement. We present, for the first time, the results for the flavour off-diagonal partonic channels at the next-to-next-to-leading order.

Extending the application of the light-cone sum rules method to low momenta using QCD renormalization-group summation: Theory and phenomenology

We show that using renormalization-group summation to generate the QCD radiative corrections to the $\pi-\gamma$ transition form factor, calculated with lightcone sum rules (LCSR), renders the strong coupling free of Landau singularities while preserving the QCD form-factor asymptotics. This enables a reliable applicability of the LCSR method to momenta well below 1 GeV$^2$. This way, one can use the new preliminary BESIII data with unprecedented accuracy below 1.5 GeV$^2$ to fine tune the prefactor of the twist-six contribution. Using a combined fit to all available data below 3.1 GeV$^2$, we are able to determine all nonperturbative scale parameters and a few Gegenbauer coefficients entering the calculation of the form factor. Employing these ingredients, we determine a pion distribution amplitude with conformal coefficients $(b_2,b_4)$ that agree at the $1\sigma$ level with the data for $Q^2 \leqslant 3.1$ GeV$^2$ and fulfill at the same time the lattice constraints on $b_2$ at N$^3$LO together with the constraints from QCD sum rules with nonlocal condensates.The form-factor prediction calculated herewith reproduces the data below 1 GeV$^2$ significantly better than analogous predictions based on a fixed-order power-series expansion in the strong coupling constant.

Bottom-quark production at hadron colliders: fully differential predictions in NNLO QCD

We report on the first fully differential calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD radiative corrections to the production of bottom-quark pairs at hadron colliders. The calculation is performed by using the qT subtraction formalism to handle and cancel infrared singularities in real and virtual contributions. The computation is implemented in the Matrix framework, thereby allowing us to efficiently compute arbitrary infrared-safe observables in the four-flavour scheme. We present selected predictions for bottom-quark production at the Tevatron and at the LHC at different collider energies, and we perform some comparisons with available experimental results. We find that the NNLO corrections are sizeable, typically of the order of 25–35%, and they lead to a significant reduction of the perturbative uncertainties. Therefore, their inclusion is crucial for an accurate theoretical description of this process.

Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of charged-current tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-kT effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian kT -smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for {D}_s^{pm } production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertain- ties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrain the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.

Radiative corrections to QCD SR for meson distribution amplitudes up to

We obtain QCD radiative corrections to distribution amplitudes of π and ρ mesons within QCD sum rules. To this end, we calculate correlators of two different composite vertices at order , where β0 is the first coefficient in the expansion of QCD ϒ-function.

NLO radiative corrections to the Drell–Yan process at LHC Run3

NLO electroweak and QCD radiative corrections to the Drell-Yan process were calculated. The numerical estimations for forward-backward asymmetry in μ+μ− pair production performed in various rapidity ranges and different PDF sets for center-of-mass energy TeV are in agreement with CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Runl experimental data. To simulate the detector acceptance we used the standard CMS detector cuts. We present predictions for radiatively corrected differential cross section and forward-backward asymmetry at CMS LHC Run3 with energy TeV.

Top-quark pair production at the LHC: fully differential QCD predictions at NNLO

We report on a new fully differential calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD radiative corrections to the production of top-quark pairs at hadron colliders. The calculation is performed by using the qT subtraction formalism to handle and cancel infrared singularities in real and virtual contributions. The computation is implemented in the Matrix framework, thereby allowing us to efficiently compute arbitrary infrared-safe observables for stable top quarks. We present NNLO predictions for several single- and double-differential kinematical distributions in pp collisions at the centre-of-mass energy sqrt{s}=13 TeV, and we compare them with recent LHC data by the CMS collaboration.

Top-quark pair hadroproduction at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD

We report on a new calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD radiative corrections to the inclusive production of top-quark pairs at hadron colliders. The calculation is performed by using the $q_T$ subtraction formalism to handle and cancel infrared singular contributions at intermediate stages of the computation. We present numerical results for the total cross section in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV and $13$ TeV, and we compare them with those obtained by using the publicly available numerical program Top++. Our computation represents the first complete application of the $q_T$ subtraction formalism to the hadroproduction of a colourful high-mass system at NNLO.

ZZ production at the LHC: NLO QCD corrections to the loop-induced gluon fusion channel

We consider QCD radiative corrections to the production of four charged leptons in hadron collisions. We present the computation of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the loop-induced gluon fusion contribution. Our predictions include, for the first time, also the quark-gluon partonic channels. The computed corrections, which are formally of mathcal{O}left({alpha}_{mathrm{S}}^3right) , turn out to increase the loop-induced Born-level result by an amount ranging from 75% to 71% as sqrt{s} ranges from 8 to 13 TeV. We combine our result with state-of-the-art NNLO corrections to the quark annihilation channel, and present updated predictions for fiducial cross sections and distributions for this process.