A massive variable flavour number scheme for the Drell-Yan process

The prediction of differential cross-sections in hadron-hadron scattering processes is typically performed in a scheme where the heavy-flavour quarks (c, b, tc,b,t) are treated either as massless or massive partons. In this work, a method to describe the production of colour-singlet processes which combines these two approaches is presented. The core idea is that the contribution from power corrections involving the heavy-quark mass can be numerically isolated from the rest of the massive computation. These power corrections can then be combined with a massless computation (where they are absent), enabling the construction of differential cross-section predictions in a massive variable flavour number scheme. As an example, the procedure is applied to the low-mass Drell-Yan process within the LHCb fiducial region, where predictions for the rapidity and transverse-momentum distributions of the lepton pair are provided. To validate the procedure, it is shown how the n_fnf-dependent coefficient of a massless computation can be recovered from the massless limit of the massive one. This feature is also used to differentially extract the massless N^3LON3LO coefficient of the Drell-Yan process in the gluon-fusion channel.

Short-distance constraints for HLbL in muon g-2

Model-independent short-distance constraints allow for a reduction of theoretical uncertainties associated to the analytic evaluation of Hadronic Light-by-Light contributions to the muon g-2. In this talk we focus on the region where the three loop virtualities are large. Even when the fourth photon leg is soft, we show how a precise Operator Product Expansion can be applied in that region. The leading contribution is found to be given by the quark loop, while the evaluation of both gluonic and power corrections show how the expansion is well behaved at relatively low energies, where significant contributions to the muon g-2 remain. Numerical values for them are also presented.

The importance of kinematic twists and genuine saturation effects in dijet production at the Electron-Ion Collider

We compute the differential yield for quark anti-quark dijet production in high-energy electron-proton and electron-nucleus collisions at small x as a function of the relative momentum P⊥ and momentum imbalance k⊥ of the dijet system for different photon virtualities Q2, and study the elliptic and quadrangular anisotropies in the relative angle between P⊥ and k⊥. We review and extend the analysis in [1], which compared the results of the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) with those obtained using the transverse momentum dependent (TMD) framework. In particular, we include in our comparison the improved TMD (ITMD) framework, which resums kinematic power corrections of the ratio k⊥ over the hard scale Q⊥. By comparing ITMD and CGC results we are able to isolate genuine higher saturation contributions in the ratio Qs/Q⊥ which are resummed only in the CGC. These saturation contributions are in addition to those in the Weizsäcker-Williams gluon TMD that appear in powers of Qs/k⊥. We provide numerical estimates of these contributions for inclusive dijet production at the future Electron-Ion Collider, and identify kinematic windows where they can become relevant in the measurement of dijet and dihadron azimuthal correlations. We argue that such measurements will allow the detailed experimental study of both kinematic power corrections and genuine gluon saturation effects.

Fiducial Higgs and Drell-Yan distributions at N3LL′+NNLO with RadISH

We present state-of-the-art predictions for transverse observables relevant to colour-singlet production at the LHC, in particular the transverse momentum of the colour singlet in gluon-fusion Higgs production and in neutral Drell-Yan lepton-pair production, as well as the $$ {\phi}_{\eta}^{\ast } $$ ϕ η ∗ observable in Drell Yan. We perform a next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N3LL) resummation of such observables in momentum space according to the RadISH formalism, consistently including in our prediction all constant terms of relative order $$ {\alpha}_s^3 $$ α s 3 with respect to the Born, thereby achieving N3LL′ accuracy. The calculation is fully exclusive with respect to the Born kinematics, which allows the application of arbitrary fiducial selection cuts on the decay products of the colour singlet. We supplement our results with a transverse-recoil prescription, accounting for dominant classes of subleading-power corrections in a fiducial setup. The resummed predictions are matched with fixed-order differential spectra at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy. A phenomenological comparison is carried out with 13 TeV LHC data relevant to the Higgs to di-photon channel, as well as to neutral Drell-Yan lepton-pair production. Overall, the inclusion of $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O ($$ {\alpha}_s^3 $$ α s 3 ) constant terms, and to a lesser extent of transverse-recoil effects, proves beneficial for the comparison of theoretical predictions to data, leaving a residual theoretical uncertainty in the resummation region at the 2–5% level for Drell-Yan observables, and 5–7% in Higgs production.

Infrared renormalons in collider processes

Precise theoretical predictions are a key ingredient for an accurate determination of the structure of the Lagrangian of particle physics, including its free parameters, which summarizes our understanding of the fundamental interactions among particles. Furthermore, due to the absence of clear new-physics signals, precise theoretical calculations are required to pin down possible subtle deviations from the Standard Model predictions. The error associated with such calculations must be scrutinized, as non-perturbative power corrections, dubbed infrared renormalons, can limit the ultimate precision of truncated perturbative expansions in quantum chromodynamics. In this review, we focus on linear power corrections that can arise in certain kinematic distributions relevant for collider phenomenology where an operator product expansion is missing, e.g. those obtained from the top-quark decay products, shape observables and the transverse momentum of massive gauge bosons. Only the last one is found to be free from such corrections, while the mass of the system comprising the top decay products has a larger power correction if the perturbative expansion is expressed in terms of a short-distance mass instead of the pole mass. A proper modelization of non-perturbative corrections is crucial in the context of shape observables to obtain reliable strong coupling constant extractions.

Precision studies for Drell–Yan processes at NNLO

We present a detailed comparison of the fixed-order predictions computed by four publicly available computer codes for Drell–Yan processes at the LHC and Tevatron colliders. We point out that while there is agreement among the predictions at the next-to-leading order accuracy, the predictions at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) differ, whose extent depends on the observable. The sizes of the differences in general are at least similar, sometimes larger than the sizes of the NNLO corrections themselves. We demonstrate that the neglected power corrections by the codes that use global slicing methods for the regularization of double real emissions can be the source of the differences. Depending on the fiducial cuts, those power corrections become linear, hence enhanced as compared to quadratic ones that are considered standard.

W-boson production in TMD factorization

At hadron colliders, the differential cross section for W production can be factorized and it is sensitive transverse momentum dependent distributions (TMD) for low boson transverse momentum. While, often, the corresponding non-perturbative QCD contributions are extrapolated from Z boson production, here we use an existing extraction (based on the code Artemide) of TMD which includes data coming from Drell–Yan and semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering, to provide checks and predictions for the W case. Including fiducial cuts with different configurations and kinematical power corrections, we consider transverse momentum dependent cross sections within several intervals of the vector boson transverse mass. We perform the same study for the $$p_T^{W^-}/p_T^{W^+}$$ p T W - / p T W + and $$p_T^Z/p_T^W$$ p T Z / p T W distributions. We compare our predictions with recent extractions of these quantities at ATLAS and CMS and results from TeVatron. The results encourage a broader experimental and phenomenological work, and a deeper study of TMD for the W case.

Drell-Yan qT resummation of fiducial power corrections at N3LL

We consider Drell-Yan production pp → V*X → LX at small qT ≪ Q, where qT and Q are the total transverse momentum and invariant mass of the leptonic final state L. Experimental measurements require fiducial cuts on L, which in general introduce enhanced, linear power corrections in qT/Q. We show that they can be unambiguously predicted from factorization, and resummed to the same order as the leading-power contribution. For the fiducial qT spectrum, they constitute the complete linear power corrections. We thus obtain predictions for the fiducial qT spectrum to N3LL and next-to-leading-power in qT/Q. Matching to full NNLO ($$ {\alpha}_s^2 $$ α s 2 ), we find that the linear power corrections are indeed the dominant ones, and once included by factorization, the remaining fixed-order corrections become almost negligible below qT ≲ 40 GeV. We also discuss the implications for more complicated observables, and provide predictions for the fiducial ϕ* spectrum at N3LL+NNLO. We find excellent agreement with ATLAS and CMS measurements of qT and ϕ*. We also consider the $$ {p}_T^{\mathrm{\ell}} $$ p T ℓ spectrum. We show that it develops leptonic power corrections in qT/(Q − 2$$ {p}_T^{\mathrm{\ell}} $$ p T ℓ ), which diverge near the Jacobian peak $$ {p}_T^{\mathrm{\ell}} $$ p T ℓ ∼ Q/2 and must be kept to all powers to obtain a meaningful result there. Doing so, we obtain for the first time an analytically resummed result for the $$ {p}_T^{\mathrm{\ell}} $$ p T ℓ spectrum around the Jacobian peak at N3LL+NNLO. Our method is based on performing a complete tensor decomposition for hadronic and leptonic tensors. We show that in practice this is equivalent to often-used recoil prescriptions, for which our results now provide rigorous, formal justification. Our tensor decomposition yields nine Lorentz-scalar hadronic structure functions, which for Z/γ* → ℓℓ or W → ℓν directly map onto the commonly used angular coefficients, but also holds for arbitrary leptonic final states. In particular, for suitably defined Born-projected leptons it still yields a LO-like angular decomposition even when including QED final-state radiation. Finally, we also discuss the application to qT subtractions. Including the unambiguously predicted fiducial power corrections significantly improves their performance, and in particular makes them applicable near kinematic edges where they otherwise break down due to large leptonic power corrections.