VBFNLO: A parton level Monte Carlo for processes with electroweak bosons
K. Arnold, M. Bahr, G. Bozzi, F. Campanario, C. Englert, T. Figy, N. Greiner, C. Hackstein, V. Hankele, B. Jager, G. Klamke, M. Kubocz, C. Oleari, S. Platzer, S… 展开作者
K. Arnold, M. Bahr, G. Bozzi, F. Campanario, C. Englert, T. Figy, N. Greiner, C. Hackstein, V. Hankele, B. Jager, G. Klamke, M. Kubocz, C. Oleari, S. Platzer, S. Prestel, M. Worek, D. Zeppenfeld
VBFNLO is a fully flexible parton level Monte Carlo program for the simulation of vector boson fusion, double and triple vector boson production in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. VBFNLO includes Higgs and vector boson decays with full spin correlations and all off-shell effects. In addition, VBFNLO implements CP-even and CP-odd Higgs boson via gluon fusion, associated with two jets, at the leading-order one-loop level with the full top- and bottom-quark mass dependence in a generic two-Higgs-doublet model.
A variety of effects arising from beyond the Standard Model physics are implemented for selected processes. This includes anomalous couplings of Higgs and vector bosons and a Warped Higgsless extra dimension model. The program offers the possibility to generate Les Houches Accord event files for all processes available at leading order.
In this Snowmass 2013 white paper, we review the effective field theory approach for studies of non-standard electroweak interactions in electroweak vector boson pair and triple production and vector boson scattering. We present an overview of the implementation of dimension six and eight operators in MadGraph5, VBFNLO, and WHIZARD, and provide relations between the coefficients of these higher dimensions operators used in these programs and in the anomalous couplings approach. We perform a tuned comparison of predictions for multi-boson processes including non-standard electroweak interaction…
The VBFNLO program package is a collection of Monte Carlo programs for the calculation of NLO QCD corrections to vector boson fusion cross sections, double and triple vector boson production, or the production of two electroweak bosons in association with an additional jet. An overview is given of the processes and features implemented in VBFNLO. WWgamma and Wgamma jet production are discussed as examples.
We perform a detailed analysis of next-to-leading order plus parton-shower matching in vector-boson-fusion WW production including leptonic decays. The study is performed in the Herwig 7 framework interfaced to VBFNLO 3, using the angular-ordered and dipole-based parton-shower algorithms combined with the subtractive and multiplicative matching algorithms.
We investigate the effects of combining next-to-leading order QCD results with parton-shower effects in $W^+W^-jj$ production via vector-boson fusion including leptonic decays. Using the Herwig 7 framework interfaced to VBFNLO 3, we compare the predictions obtained from the angular-ordered and dipole-based parton shower algorithms combined with subtractive, MC@NLO-type, and multiplicative, Powheg-type, matching. A consistent treatment of renormalisation and factorisation scale variations in the hard process and the parton shower allows to assign more reliable theory uncertainty predictions to …
Vbfnlo is a flexible parton level Monte Carlo program for the simulation of vector boson fusion (VBF), double and triple vector boson (plus jet) production in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant, as well as Higgs boson plus two jet production via gluon fusion at the one-loop level. This note briefly describes the main additional features and processes that have been added in the new release -- Vbfnlo Version 2.6.0. At NLO QCD diboson production (Wγ, WZ, ZZ, Zγand γγ), same-sign W pair production via vector boson fusion and the process Wγγj have be…
VBFNLO is a flexible parton level Monte Carlo program for the simulation of vector boson fusion (VBF), double and triple vector boson (plus jet) production as well as QCD-induced single and double vector boson production plus two jets in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant. Furthermore, Higgs boson plus two jet production via gluon fusion at the one-loop level is included. This note briefly describes the main additional features and processes that have been added in the new release -- VBFNLO Version 2.7.0. At NLO QCD several new processes are avai…
We study the $W^+W^-$ and $Z^0Z^0$ electroweak boson production in double parton scattering using QCD evolution equations for double parton distributions. In particular, we analyze the impact of splitting terms in the evolution equations on the double parton scattering cross sections. Unlike the standard terms, the splitting terms are not suppressed for large values of the relative momentum of two partons in the double parton scattering. Thus, they play an important role which we discuss in detail for the single splitting contribution to the cross sections under the study.
Transverse and longitudinal electroweak gauge boson parton distribution functions (PDFs) are computed in terms of deep-inelastic scattering structure functions, following the recently developed method to determine the photon PDF. The calculation provides initial conditions at the electroweak scale for PDF evolution to higher energies. Numerical results for the $W^\pm$ and $Z$ transverse, longitudinal and polarized PDFs, as well as the $γZ$ transverse and polarized PDFs are presented.
We present results of the simulation of electroweak Higgs boson production at the Large Hadron Collider using both the NLO multijet merging and NLO matching frameworks provided by the general purpose event generator Herwig 7. For the simulation of the hard scattering processes, we use the HJets library for the full calculation and VBFNLO for the approximate calculation to compute the $2\to h+n$ amplitudes at tree-level with $n=2,3,4$ and at one-loop with $n=2,3$.
We use the POWHEG method to perform parton-shower matching for Drell-Yan production of W and Z bosons at the LHC at NLO QCD and NLO electroweak accuracy. In particular, we investigate an improved treatment of the vector-boson resonances within the POWHEG method. We employ an independent implementation of the POWHEG method and compare to earlier results within the POWHEGBOX. On the technical side, we provide the FKS formalism for photon-radiation off fermions within mass regularization.
The status of two Monte Carlo generators, HELAC-PHEGAS, a program for multi-jet processes and VBFNLO, a parton level program for vector boson fusion processes at NLO QCD, is briefly presented. The aim of these tools is the simulation of events within the Standard Model at current and future high energy experiments, in particular the LHC. Some results related to the production of multi-jet final states at the LHC are also shown.
We present a first implementation of collinear electroweak radiation in the Vincia parton shower. Due to the chiral nature of the electroweak theory, explicit spin dependence in the shower algorithm is required. We thus use the spinor-helicity formalism to compute helicity-dependent branching kernels, taking special care to deal with the gauge relics that may appear in computation that involve longitudinal polarizations of the massive electroweak vector bosons. These kernels are used to construct a shower algorithm that includes all possible collinear final-state electroweak branchings, includ…
We discuss the necessary steps for implementing an angularly ordered (AO) electroweak (EW) parton shower in Herwig 7 multi-purpose event generator. This includes calculating the helicity-dependent quasi-collinear EW branching functions that correspond to the full range of final-state EW parton shower, in addition to the initial-state EW gauge vector boson radiations. The results are successfully embedded in the AO Herwig 7 shower algorithm and have undergone a set of comprehensive and conclusive performance tests. Furthermore, we have used this EW parton shower algorithm, alongside the existin…
If studies of electroweak gauge boson final states at the Large Hadron Collider, for Standard Model physics and beyond, are sensitive to effects of the initial state's transverse momentum distribution, appropriate generalizations of QCD shower evolution are required. We propose a method to do this based on QCD transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization at high energy. The method incorporates experimental information from the high-precision deep inelastic scattering (DIS) measurements, and includes experimental and theoretical uncertainties on TMD parton density functions. We illustrate …
The production of weak gauge bosons in association with heavy flavored mesons at the LHCb conditions is considered, and a detailed study of the different contributing processes is presented including single (SPS) and double (DPS) parton scattering mechanisms. We find that the usual DPS factorization formula needs to be corrected for the limited partonic phase space, and that including the relevant corrections reduces discrepancies in the associated $ZD$ production. We conclude finally that double parton scattering dominates the production of same-sign $W^\pm D^\pm$ states, as well as the produ…
A complete parton level analysis of lv + four jets production at the LHC is presented, including all processes at order O(alpha^6), O(alpha^4*alpha_s^2) and O(alpha^2*alpha_s^4). The infinite Higgs mass scenario, which is considered as a benchmark for strong scattering theories and is the limiting case for composite Higgs models, is confronted with the Standard Model light Higgs predictions in order to determine whether a composite Higgs signal can be detected as an excess of events in boson--boson scattering.
We describe the use of doubly-unintegrated parton distributions in hadron-hadron collisions, using the (z,k_t)-factorisation prescription where the transverse momentum of the incoming parton is generated in the last evolution step. We apply this formalism to calculate the transverse momentum (P_T) distributions of produced W and Z bosons and compare the predictions to Tevatron Run 1 data. We find that the observed P_T distributions can be generated almost entirely by the leading order q_1 q_2 -> W,Z subprocesses, using known and universal doubly-unintegrated quark distributions. We also calcul…
We analyse diffractive electroweak vector boson production in hadronic collisions and show that the single diffractive W boson production asymmetry in rapidity is a particularly good observable at the LHC to test the concept of the flavour symmetric pomeron parton distributions. It may also provide an additional constraint for the parton distribution functions in the proton.
We calculate the fiducial and differential $W^{\pm}/Z^0+jet(s)$ production cross-sections in the presence of electroweak (EW) corrections through virtual loop contributions to the matrix elements (MEs) of the processes and real partonic cascade emissions. The calculations are carried out for proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV, using Herwig 7 general-purpose Monte-Carlo event generator with leading-order or next-to-leading-order MEs that are interfaced with different parton-shower configurations. The results are compared with precision experimental measurements from ATLAS collabora…
We present the matching of the next-to-leading order QCD calculation for W+W+jj production via vector-boson fusion in hadronic collisions to parton-shower Monte-Carlo programs according to the POWHEG method. Our implementation complements existing code for QCD-induced W+W+jj production in the POWHEGBOX package, thereby providing a platform for the complete Standard Model production of W+W+jj events via QCD and electroweak interactions. The impact of parton-shower effects is discussed for various distributions and found to be small in most cases. However, few observables, that are relevant for …
Electroweak corrections to hadron collider processes become relevant at the level of precision reached by present-day LHC experiments. We provide a preliminary discussion of the impact of electroweak corrections to parton distributions, concentrating on electrodynamics corrections to parton evolution equations, and showing a preliminary assessment of their impact. Furthermore, we determine the parton distribution function of the photon from deep inelastic scattering data using the NNPDF methodology.
We present next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs production in association with a photon via weak boson fusion at a hadron collider. Utilizing the fully flexible parton level Monte-Carlo program VBFNLO, we find small overall corrections, while the shape of some distributions is sensitive to radiative contributions in certain regions of phase-space. Residual scale uncertainties at next-to-leading order are at the few-percent level. Being perturbatively well under control and exhibiting kinematic features that allow to distinguish it from potential backgrounds, this process can serve as…
An alternative calculation of the lowest order electroweak radiative corrections to the single W-boson production in hadron-hadron collision in the framework of the quark parton model without any absorption of the collinear quark singularity into the parton distributions is carried out. Numerical analysis under Tevatron and LHC kinematic conditions is performed.
We present new sets of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. Our analyses are based on deeply inelastic scattering data with charged-lepton and neutrino beams on nuclear targets, and experimental data from measurements of $W^{\pm},\,Z$ boson production in p+Pb collisions at the LHC. In addition, a set of proton baseline PDFs is fitted within the same framework and with the same theoretical assumptions. The results of our global QCD analysis are compared to existing nPDF sets and to the previous nPDF set TUJ…
We overview the construction of Nonforward Parton Distributions (NPD) in Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS). Then we turn to the analysis of similar constructs in the weak sector (electroweak NPD's). We argue in favour of a possible use of electroweak DVCS (EWDVCS) as a rare process for the study of neutrinos in cosmic rays and for light dark matter detection in underground experiments
We present updates to a recent CTEQ-Jefferson Lab (CJ) global analysis of parton distribution functions with a new set of electroweak data that provide unique access to quark flavor separation in the proton. In particular, recent $W$ and $Z$ boson measurements from the STAR experiment at RHIC put additional constraints on light quarks and antiquarks near the valence regime. The new measurement of the Drell-Yan lepton pair production ratio in $p+p$ and $p+d$ collisions by the SeaQuest experiment at Fermilab extends the large-$x$ coverage of the previous E866 experiment and sheds new light on th…
We describe parton density function sensitivity studies, using muon final states produced through the Drell-Yan process via W, Z or $γ^*$ down to a Q^2 of 10 GeV^2. This makes use of LHCb's unique ability to trigger on low transverse momentum objects. Due to the forward acceptance of LHCb, x values down to 2 10^{-6} can be probed, where with just 100 pb-1 of data, the gluon PDF can improved up to 70%.
We present an implementation of $WZjj$ production via vector-boson fusion in the POWHEG BOX, a public tool for the matching of next-to-leading order QCD calculations with multi-purpose parton-shower generators. We provide phenomenological results for electroweak $WZjj$ production with fully leptonic decays at the LHC in realistic setups and discuss theoretical uncertainties associated with the simulation. We find that beyond the leading-order approximation the dependence on the unphysical factorization and renormalization scales is mild. The two tagging jets are furthermore very stable against…
There is a close analogy between electroweak instanton-induced baryon plus lepton number (B+L) violating processes in Quantum Flavor Dynamics (QFD) and hard QCD instanton-induced chirality violating processes in deep-inelastic scattering. In view of the recent information about the latter both from lattice simulations and from the H1 experiment at HERA, it seems worthwhile to reconsider electroweak B+L violation at high energies. We present a state of the art evaluation of QFD instanton-induced parton-parton cross-sections, as relevant at future high energy colliders in the hundreds of TeV reg…
We present an implementation of electroweak W+W-jj production at hadron colliders in the POWHEG framework, a method that allows the interfacing of a next-to-leading order QCD calculation with parton shower Monte Carlo programs. We provide results for both, fully and semi-leptonic decay modes of the weak bosons, taking resonant and non-resonant contributions and spin correlations of the final-state particles into account. To illustrate the versatility of our implementation, we provide phenomenological results for two representative scenarios with a light and with a heavy Higgs boson, respective…
We present a set of NLO SUSY-QCD calculations for the pair production of neutralinos and charginos at the LHC, and their matching to parton-shower programs in the framework of the POWHEG-BOX program package. The code we have developed provides a SUSY Les Houches Accord interface for setting supersymmetric input parameters. Decays of the neutralinos and charginos and parton-shower effects can be simulated with PYTHIA. To illustrate the capabilities of our program, we present phenomenological results for a representative SUSY parameter point. We find that NLO-QCD corrections increase the product…
Using parton density functions (PDFs) with threshold-resummation improvement, we consistently calculate higgsino/gaugino and slepton pair production at next-to-leading order and next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy at the LHC. The smaller PDF uncertainty of the global PDF sets is exploited with a factorisation method, which also avoids complications arising in the refitting of threshold-resummation improved PDF replicas in Mellin space. We explicitly take into account the reduction of the scale uncertainty due to the resummation. We show that the resummation contributions in the PDF fits parti…
Recently a new set of Parton Distribution Functions (NNPDF1.2) has been produced and released by the NNPDF Collaboration. The inclusion of dimuon data in the analysis allows a determination of the strange content of the proton with faithful uncertainty estimation together with a precision determination of electroweak parameters. In this contribution, we discuss some of the implications of the NNPDF1.2 set, and in particular of its uncertainty determination of the strange PDFs, for LHC phenomenology. First of all, we study the impact on the electroweak boson production cross-section, with speci…
Weak vector boson scattering (VBS) at the LHC provides an excellent source of information on the structure of quartic gauge couplings and possible effects of physics beyond the SM in electroweak symmetry breaking. Parameterizing deviations from the SM within an effective field theory at tree level, the dimension-8 operators, which are needed for sufficiently general modeling, lead to unphysical enhancements of cross sections within the accessible energy range of the LHC. Preservation of unitarity limits is needed for phenomenological studies of the $VVjj$ events which signify VBS. Here we deve…
Weak boson fusion is expected to be an important Higgs production channel at the LHC. Complete one-loop results for weak boson fusion in the Standard Model have been obtained by calculating the full virtual electroweak corrections and photon radiation and implementing these results into the public Monte Carlo program VBFNLO which includes the NLO QCD corrections. Furthermore the dominant supersymmetric one-loop corrections to neutral Higgs production, in the general case where the MSSM includes complex phases, have been calculated. These results have been combined with all one-loop corrections…
We discuss the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SM-EFT) contributions to neutral- and charge-current Drell-Yan production, associated production of the Higgs and a vector boson, and Higgs boson production via vector boson fusion. We consider all the dimension-six SM-EFT operators that contribute to these processes at leading order, include next-to-leading order QCD corrections, and interface them with parton showering and hadronization in Pythia8 according to the POWHEG method. We discuss existing constraints on the coefficients of dimension-six operators and identify differential and an…
We consider the production of a single $Z$ or $W$ boson in association with jets at the LHC. We compute the corresponding cross sections by matching NLO QCD predictions with the Herwig++ and Pythia8 parton showers, and by merging all of the underlying matrix elements with up to two light partons at the Born level. We compare our results with several 7-TeV measurements by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, and overall we find a good agreement between theory and data.
Among the physics goals of LHC experiments, precision tests of the Standard Model in the Strong and Electroweak sectors play an important role. Because of nature of the proton-proton processes, observables based on the measurement of the direction and energy of leptons provide the most precise signatures. In the present paper, we concentrate on the angular distribution of Drell-Yan process leptons, in the lepton-pair rest-frame. The vector nature of the intermediate state imposes that distributions are to a good precision described by spherical polynomials of at most second order. We show that…
We use recent neutrino dimuon production data combined with a global deep-inelastic parton fit to construct a new parton set, NNPDF1.2, which includes a determination of the strange and antistrange distributions of the nucleon. The result is characterized by a faithful estimation of uncertainties thanks to the use of the NNPDF methodology, and is free of model or theoretical assumptions other than the use of NLO perturbative QCD and exact sum rules. Better control of the uncertainties of the strange and antistrange parton distributions allows us to reassess the determination of electroweak par…
In the Standard Model the process $q\bar{q}\rightarrow q\bar{q}V$ (where $V=W^\pm,Z^0$ or $γ$) can occur via gluon exchange and also via $W^\pm$ or $Z^0$ exchange. The corresponding chromodynamic and electroweak amplitudes can interfere with one another. These interference cross sections are largest when the exchanged $W^\pm$ or $Z^0$ is on-shell when they are also odd under parity. Interference cross sections computed using helicity-amplitude techniques are presented for all interesting subprocesses as well as for the processes $q\bar{q}\rightarrow q\bar{q} l\bar{l}$ in which the lepton pair …
The most likely spin assignments of the recently discovered 126 GeV resonance are spin 0 or 2. In order to distinguish the two, we construct an effective Lagrangian model which comprises interactions of a spin-2 electroweak singlet or triplet state with the SM gauge bosons. Within this model, cross sections and differential distributions are calculated and implemented within the Monte Carlo program VBFNLO, which simulates vector-boson-fusion processes at hadron colliders at NLO QCD accuracy. We study the phenomenology of spin-2 resonances produced in vector-boson-fusion processes at the LHC. S…
We analyse diffractive weak boson production in $pp$ collisions. We show that the measurement of $W$ boson production asymmetry in the diffractive $pp$ collisions is a valuable method to test the concept of the flavour symmetric pomeron parton distributions.
We calculate the three-loop soft function for the production of an electroweak boson (Higgs, $γ$, $W^\pm$, $Z$) with large transverse momentum at a hadron collider. It is the first time a soft function for a three-parton process is computed at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO). As a technical novelty, we perform the calculation in terms of forward-scattering-type loop diagrams rather than evaluating phase space integrals. Our three-loop result contains color-tripole contributions and explicitly confirms predictions on the universal infrared structure of QCD scattering amplitudes …
A previous calculation of electroweak O(alpha) corrections to deep-inelastic neutrino scattering, as e.g. measured by NuTeV and NOMAD, is supplemented by higher-order effects. In detail, we take into account universal two-loop effects from Δαand Δρas well as higher-order final-state photon radiation off muons in the structure function approach. Moreover, we make use of the recently released O(alpha)-improved parton distributions MRST2004QED and identify the relevant QED factorization scheme, which is DIS like. As a technical byproduct, we describe slicing and subtraction techniques for an effi…
Using deep inelastic $e^{\pm}p$ charged and neutral current scattering cross sections previously published, a combined electroweak and QCD analysis is performed to determine electroweak parameters accounting for their correlation with parton distributions. The data used have been collected by the H1 experiment in 1994-2000 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 117.2 pb$^{-1}$. The $W$ boson mass is determined via the propagator and in the on-mass-shell scheme. A first measurement at HERA is made of the light quark weak couplings to the $Z^0$ boson.
Presented are complete next-to-leading order electroweak (NLO EW) corrections to top-squark pair production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). At this order, also effects from the interference of EW and QCD contributions have to be taken into account. Moreover, photon-induced top-squark production is considered as an additional partonic channel, which arises from the non-zero photon density in the proton.
The QCD-induced $W^\pm γ$ production channels in association with two jets are computed at next-to-leading order QCD accuracy. The W bosons decay leptonicly and full off-shell and finite width effects as well as spin correlations are taken into account. These processes are important backgrounds to beyond Standard Model physics searches and also relevant to test the nature of the quartic gauge couplings of the Standard Model. The next-to-leading order corrections reduce the scale uncertainty significantly and show a non-trivial phase space dependence. Our code will be publicly available as part…
We discuss resummation of large logarithmic terms that appear in the cross-section of semi-inclusive DIS in the case when the final-state hadron follows the direction of the incoming electroweak vector boson in the c.m. frame of the vector boson and the initial-state proton.
We compute the rapidity distributions of W and Z bosons produced at the Tevatron and the LHC through next-to-next-to leading order in QCD. Our results demonstrate remarkable stability with respect to variations of the factorization and renormalization scales for all values of rapidity accessible in current and future experiments. These processes are therefore ``gold-plated'': current theoretical knowledge yields QCD predictions accurate to better than one percent. These results strengthen the proposal to use W and Z production to determine parton-parton luminosities and constrain parton distri…
The dominant contribution to the Higgs production in association with bottom quark pair at the LHC is gluon-gluon fusion parton subprocess. We present a complete calculation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak (EW) corrections to this channel. The other small contributions with quarks in the initial state are calculated at tree level. We find that the NLO EW corrections can suppress the leading order (LO) contributions significantly.
We have studied the effect of one-loop logarithmic electroweak radiative corrections on WZ and $Wγ$ production processes at the LHC. We present analytical results for the leading-logarithmic electroweak corrections to the corresponding partonic processes du -> WZ, Wgamma. Using the leading-pole approximation we implement these corrections into Monte Carlo programs for $pp\to lν_l l'\bar l', lν_lγ$. We find that electroweak corrections lower the predictions by 5-20% in the physically interesting region of large transverse momentum and small rapidity separation of the gauge bosons.
