The leptonic decays of the heavy gauge bosons W and/or Z provide a clear experimental signature at hadron colliders. The production of accompanying jets is an excellent signal to probe QCD, while also being the main background to many searches for new physics. Describing the complex final state of W or Z + jets is a theoretical challenge with most existing calculations combining matrix elements for high energy jet production with a parton shower for lower energy jet production. We focus on two models: SHERPA, which uses Leading Order matrix elements for boson and jet production; and POWHEG with HERWIG++, which uses a Next-To-Leading Order Matrix element for Z production. In order to isolate the impact of the matrix elements for jet production, it is first essential to constrain the differences in the rest of the calculation in each case: specifically, the Multiple Parton Interaction models, and the tuning of the parton shower interfaced to the matrix elements. We test all three aspects of these models against data from the Tevatron, and perform a study of some basic kinematic variables at the LHC energy.
In this paper we complete our calculation of the NLO jet vertex which is part of the cross section formulae for the production of Mueller Navelet jets at hadron hadron colliders and of forward jets in deep inelastic electron proton scattering.
In this contribution recent results regarding the NLO electroweak corrections for vector boson production in association with jets are presented. Besides discussing the phenomenology of the fixed-order results, their corporation in existing NLO QCD parton shower matched and merged calculations, which can directly be used in experimental analyses, will be shown.
We present the full NLO QCD corrections to the production of a W^+W^- pair in association with two jets in hadronic collisions, which is an important background to New Physics and Higgs boson searches. We include leptonic decays of the W-bosons with full spin correlations. We find NLO corrections of the order of 10% for standard cuts at the LHC. The scale dependence is considerably reduced by the NLO corrections.
In this contribution we study azimuthal angle decorrelation in inclusive dijet cross sections taking into account the next-to-leading (NLO) corrections to the BFKL kernel while keeping the jet vertices at leading order. We show how the angular decorrelation for jets with a wide relative separation in rapidity largely decreases when the NLO corrections are included.
We present next-to-leading order corrections in the leading colour approximation for jet rates in electron-positron annihilation up to seven jets. The results for the two-, three-, and four-jet rates agree with known results. The NLO jet rates have been known previously only up to five jets. The results for the six- and seven-jet rate are new. The results are obtained by a new and efficient method based on subtraction and numerical integration.
In this talk the application of the recently introduced methods to merge NLO calculations of successive jet multiplicities to the production of top pairs in association with jets will be discussed, in particular a fresh look is taken at the top quark forward-backward asymmetries. Emphasis will be put on the achieved theoretical accuracy and the associated perturbative and non-perturbative error estimates.
In these proceedings we present results from a recent calculation for the production of a W boson in conjunction with five jets at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. We also use results at lower multiplicities to extrapolate the cross section to the same process with six jets.
We report on the calculation of the cross section for Higgs boson production in association with three jets via gluon fusion, at next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy in QCD, in the infinite top-mass approximation. After including the complete NLO QCD corrections, we observe a strong reduction in the scale dependence of the result, and an increased steepness in the transverse momentum distributions of both the Higgs and the leading jets. The results are obtained with the combined use of GoSam, Sherpa, and the MadDipole/MadEvent framework.
The photoproduction of large-p_T charged hadrons and of prompt photons is discussed, for the inclusive case and with an associated jet, using predictions from the NLO partonic Monte Carlo program EPHOX. Comparisons to recent HERA data are also shown.
In this talk we report on first results from the NLO computation of Z production in association with five jets in hadron-hadron collisions. The results are obtained with the help of the numerical method, where apart from the phase space integration also the integration over the loop momentum is performed numerically. In addition we discuss several methods and techniques for the improvement of the Monte Carlo integration.
We compute the differential and total rate of the semileptonic decay of polarized top-quarks $t\to \ell ν_\ell + b{\rm jet} + {\rm jet}$ at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the QCD coupling with an off-shell intermediate $W$ boson. We present several normalized distributions, in particular those that reflect the $t$-spin analyzing powers of the lepton, the b-jet and the $W^+$ boson at LO and NLO QCD.
We present results for the QCD production of Z/γ + 2 jets matched with parton showers using the POWHEG method. Some technicalities relevant for the merging of NLO corrections for this process with parton showers are discussed, and results for typical distributions are shown, in presence of different sets of cuts. A comparison with ATLAS data is also presented, and good agreement is found.
After reviewing the main features of the GoSam framework for automated one-loop calculations, we present a selection of recent phenomenological results obtained with it. In particular, we focus on the recent calculation of NLO QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson in conjunction with jets at the LHC.
In this contribution we present recent progress in the computation of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections for the production of an electroweak vector boson in association with jets at hadron colliders. We focus on results obtained using the virtual matrix element library BLACKHAT in conjunction with SHERPA, focusing on results relevant to understanding the background to top production.
We present the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of a photon pair in association with one or two jets. This class of processes constitutes an important background for Higgs physics at the LHC. For the one jet process we include photon fragmentation contributions and perform a comparison between different photon isolation criteria and various isolation parameters. The two jet calculation has been performed using a smooth cone isolation criterion. We find that the NLO QCD corrections are substantial and can lead to distortions of differential distributions.
We present a study of higher order QCD corrections beyond NLO to processes with electroweak vector bosons. We focus on the regions of high transverse momenta of commonly used differential distributions. We employ the LoopSim method, combined with NLO packages, VBFNLO and MCFM, to merge the NLO samples with different multiplicities, in order to compute the dominant part of the NNLO corrections at high pT. We find that these corrections are indeed substantial, in the 30%-100% range, for a number of experimentally relevant observables. For other observables, they lead to significant reduction of …
We calculate the next-to-leading corrections to the jet vertex which is relevant for the Mueller-Navelet-jets production in p-pbar collisions and for the forward jet cross section in e-p collisions. In this first part we present the results of the vertex for an incoming quark. Particular emphasis is given to the separation of the collinear divergent part and the central region of the produced gluon.
A new next-to-leading order Monte Carlo program for the calculation of fully differential jet cross sections in photoproduction is described. The contributions from both resolved and direct components are included. A comparison between the theoretical predictions and ZEUS data is presented.
We present a method for calculating the photoproduction of jets at HERA based on Next to Leading Logarithm QCD calculations. It is implemented in a Monte-Carlo generator which allows us to easily compute any infra-red safe cross sections for 1 or 2 jet observables using various jet reconstruction algorithms. We focus on the possibility of extracting the gluon contents of the photon and of the proton from present and future H1 and ZEUS data.
In this contribution we present results from the NLO computation of the production of a $W$ boson in association with three jets in hadronic collisions. The results are obtained by combining two programs: {\tt BlackHat} for the virtual one-loop matrix elements and {\tt Sherpa} for the real-emission contributions. We present results for the Tevatron and the LHC, and address the issue of the choice of a common factorization and renormalization scale for this process.
We summarize recent progress in next-to-leading order QCD calculations made using the Monte Carlo MCFM. In particular, we focus on the calculations of p anti-p -> W b-bbar, Z b-bbar and highlight the significant corrections to background estimates for Higgs searches in the channels WH and ZH at the Tevatron. We also report on the current progress of, and strategies for, the calculation of the process p anti-p -> W/Z + 2 jets.
We calculate in the next-to-leading order the impact factor (vertex) for the production of a forward high-$p_T$ jet, in the approximation of small aperture of the jet cone in the pseudorapidity-azimuthal angle plane. The final expression for the vertex turns out to be simple and easy to implement in numerical calculations.
A report on the recent next-to-leading order QCD calculations to t anti-t b anti-b and t anti-t + 2j processes at the CERN Large Hardon Collider is presented. Results for integrated and differential cross sections are given. A significant reduction of the scale dependence is observed in both cases, which indicates that the perturbative expansion is well under control. The results are obtained in the framework of the HELAC-NLO system.
We report on the calculation of $W^\pm Zjj$ production with leptonic decays at hadron-hadron colliders at next-to-leading order in QCD. These processes are important both to test the quartic gauge couplings of the Standard Model and because they constitute relevant backgrounds to beyond standard model physics searches. Our results show that the next-to-leading order corrections reduce significantly the scale uncertainties and have a non-trivial phase space dependence.
We present the calculation of the NLO QCD corrections to the associated production of a Higgs boson and two jets, in the infinite top-mass limit. We discuss the technical details of the computation and we show the numerical impact of the radiative corrections on several observables at the LHC. The results are obtained by using a fully automated framework for fixed order NLO QCD calculations based on the interplay of the packages GoSam and Sherpa. The evaluation of the virtual corrections constitutes an application of the d-dimensional integrand-level reduction to theories with higher dimension…
We present precise predictions for prompt photon production in association with a $Z$ boson and jets. They are obtained within the Sherpa framework as a consistently merged inclusive sample. Leptonic decays of the $Z$ boson are fully included in the calculation with all offshell effects. Virtual matrix elements are provided by OpenLoops and parton shower effects are simulated with a dipole parton shower. Thanks to the NLO QCD corrections included not only for inclusive $Zγ$ production but also for the $Zγ$ + 1-jet process we find significantly reduced systematic uncertainties and very good agr…
We give a prescription for attaching parton showers to next-to-leading order (NLO) partonic jet cross sections in electron-positron annihilation. Our method effectively extends to NLO the scheme of Catani, Krauss, Kuhn, and Webber for matching between m hard jets and (m+1) hard jets. The matching between parton splitting as part of a shower and parton splitting as part of NLO matrix elements is based on the Catani-Seymour dipole subtraction method that is commonly used for removing the singularities from the NLO matrix elements.}
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 …
We discuss results for di-boson plus two jets production processes at the LHC at NLO QCD. Issues related to the scale choice are reviewed. We focus on the distributions of the invariant mass and rapidity separation of the two hardest jets and show, for $W^\pm γjj$ and $Zγjj$ production, how the contribution from the radiative decays of the massive gauge bosons can be significantly reduced.
Uncertainties in the simulation of Higgs boson production with up to two jets at next-to leading order accuracy are investigated. Traditional uncertainty estimates based on scale variations are extended employing different functional forms for the central scale, and the impact of details in the implementation of the parton shower is discussed.
Large logarithmic corrections in $\hat s/p_t^2$ lead to substantial variations in the perturbative predictions for inclusive $W$-plus-dijet processes at the Large Hadron Collider. This instability can be cured by summing the leading-logarithmic contributions in $\hat s/p_t^2$ to all orders in $α_s$. As expected though, leading logarithmic accuracy is insufficient to guarantee a suitable description in regions of phase space away from the high energy limit. We present (i) the first calculation of all partonic channels contributing at next-to-leading logarithmic order in $W$-boson production in …
We compute the NLO QCD corrections to the pair production of W-bosons in association with two jets at the Tevatron and the LHC. This process is an important background to heavy Higgs-boson production in association with two jets, either in gluon or weak boson fusion. We consider leptonic decays of W-bosons and include all the spin correlations exactly. For natural choices of the renormalization scale, the NLO QCD corrections to pp(ppbar) -> W^+W^-jj are moderate but different for various values of the center-of-mass collision energy at the LHC and the Tevatron, emphasizing the need to compute …
In this contribution we review recent progress with fixed-order QCD predictions for the production of a vector boson in association with jets at hadron colliders, using the programs BlackHat and SHERPA. We review general features of next-to-leading-order (NLO) predictions for the production of a massive vector boson in association with four jets. We also discuss how precise descriptions of vector-boson production can be applied to the determination of backgrounds to new physics signals. Here we focus on data-driven backgrounds to a missing-energy-plus-jets search performed by CMS. Finally, we …
In this talk we discuss recent progress concerning precise predictions for hadron colliders. We show results of two applications of tensor reduction using GOLEM methods: the next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to $pp \to ZZ+$jet as an important background for Higgs particle and new physics searches at hadron colliders, and the NLO corrections to graviton plus jet hadro-production, which is an important channel for graviton searches at the Tevatron and the LHC.
We present total and differential cross sections for the production of a hard photon with up to two b jets at both the Tevatron with center-of-mass energy 1.96 TeV and the Large Hadron Collider with center-of-mass energy 8 TeV, including Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) QCD corrections and full b-quark mass effects. We study the theoretical uncertainty due to the residual renormalization- and factorization-scale dependence and explain its origin on the basis of the different subprocesses contributing to the NLO cross section. We specifically address the case of the production of a hard photon with …
The transverse momentum flow inside jets is a sensitive measure of internal jet structure. For the current jets in deep inelastic scattering this jet shape measure is determined at order alpha_s^2, i.e. with up to three partons inside a single jet. The scale dependence of jet shapes in various jet algorithms is discussed. Results agree well with recent measurements by the ZEUS Collaboration, without introducing the hadronization parameter R_sep.
We present next-to-leading order (NLO) predictions including QCD and electroweak (EW) corrections for the production and decay of off-shell electroweak vector bosons in association with up to two jets at the 13 TeV LHC. All possible dilepton final states with zero, one or two charged leptons that can arise from off-shell W and Z bosons or photons are considered. All predictions are obtained using the automated implementation of NLO QCD+EW corrections in the OpenLoops matrix-element generator combined with the Munich and Sherpa Monte Carlo frameworks. Electroweak corrections play an especially …
The production of a W boson and two jets, at least one of which contains a b quark, is a principal background to single-top production, Higgs production, and signals of new physics at hadron colliders. We present a next-to-leading-order (NLO) calculation of the cross section at the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The NLO cross section differs substantially from that at LO, and we provide a context in which to understand this result.
We propose a more physical parameterization of the gluon distribution for global parton analyses of deep inelastic and related hard scattering data. In the new parameterization the gluon distribution at large x in the MSbar-scheme is driven by the valence quarks, which naturally produces a shoulder-like form at high x, and hence produces a better description of the Tevatron inclusive jet data. We perform the new analysis at both NLO and NNLO. The improvement is found to be even better at NNLO than at NLO. We make available the new sets of NLO and NNLO partons, which we denote by MRST2004.
W+jets, Z+jets and QCD multijet production processes at hadron colliders are backgrounds to many searches for physics beyond the Standard Model which involve leptons and missing energy in the final state. We review the current theoretical and experimental status of these processes at the LHC. Furthermore, we discuss several methods that allow for reliable predictions for these processes in the context of new-physics searches.
The next-to-leading order accuracy for MC@NLO results exclusive in J light jets is achieved if the computation is based on matrix elements that feature J and J+1 QCD partons. The simultaneous prediction of observables which are exclusive in different light-jet multiplicities cannot simply be obtained by summing the above results over the relevant range in J; rather, a suitable merging procedure must be defined. We address the problem of such a merging, and propose a solution that can be easily incorporated into existing MC@NLO implementations. We use the automated aMC@NLO framework to illustra…
The MC@NLO and MEPS@NLO methods, as implemented in the Monte-Carlo event generator framework Sherpa, are used to estimate the perturbative and non-perturbative uncertainties in various processes such as dijet production and the production of a W boson in association with (multiple) jets.
The production of top-quark pairs that subsequently decay hadronically and leptonically (lepton+jets channel) is one of the key processes for the study of top-quark properties at the LHC. In this article, NLO QCD corrections of order $\mathcal{O}{\left(α_{\rm s}^3α^{4}\right)}$ to the hadronic process ${\rm p}{\rm p}\to μ^-\barν_μ{\rm b}\bar{\rm b} {\rm j} {\rm j}$ are presented. The computation includes off-shell as well as non-resonant contributions, and experimental event selections are used in order to provide realistic predictions. The results are provided in the form of cross sections an…
We present a next-to-leading order calculation of Higgs boson production plus one and two jets via gluon fusion interfaced to shower Monte Carlo programs, implemented according to the POWHEG method. For this implementation we have used a new interface of the POWHEG BOX with MadGraph4, that generates the codes for generic Born and real processes automatically. The virtual corrections have been taken from the MCFM code. We carry out a simple phenomenological study of our generators, comparing them among each other and with fixed next-to-leading order results.
In a previous paper, hereafter referred to as I, we have analyzed the 7 TeV LHC data on W + jets events from the standpoint of IR-improved DGLAP parton shower effects, using the IR-improved Herwiri1.031 parton shower MC in comparison with the Herwig6.5 parton shower MC in the context of the exact $O(α_s)$ matrix element matched parton shower framework provided by MG5\_aMC@NLO. In the current paper, we extend this analysis to the LHC 8 and 13 TeV data to investigate the energy dependence of the results obtained in I. Specifically, W~+ jet events are generated in the MADGRAPH5\_aMC@NLO framework…
We present an implementation of the full electroweak $H+2~\text{jets}$ production process at hadron colliders in the framework of the $\tt{POWHEG~BOX}$, a public tool for the matching of fixed-order perturbative calculations with parton shower generators. Our implementation allows for the simultaneous description of vector-boson fusion and Higgsstrahlung contributions. NLO-QCD and electroweak corrections are taken into account and matched to QCD and QED showers, respectively. The size of the fixed-order QCD and electroweak corrections is found to be moderate, but dependent on the considered se…
We present a study of higher order QCD corrections beyond NLO to processes with an electroweak vector boson, W or Z, in association with jets. We focus on the regions of high transverse momenta of commonly used differential distributions. We employ the LoopSim method to merge NLO samples of different multiplicity obtained from MCFM and from BLACKHAT+SHERPA in order to compute the dominant part of the NNLO corrections for high-pT observables. We find that these corrections are indeed substantial for a number of experimentally relevant observables. For other observables, they lead to significant…
We determine the jet vertex for Mueller-Navelet jets and forward jets in the small-cone approximation for two particular choices of jet algoritms: the kt algorithm and the cone algorithm. These choices are motivated by the extensive use of such algorithms in the phenomenology of jets. The differences with the original calculations of the small-cone jet vertex by Ivanov and Papa, which is found to be equivalent to a formerly algorithm proposed by Furman, are shown at both analytic and numerical level, and turn out to be sizeable. A detailed numerical study of the error introduced by the small-c…
The MC@NLO method as implemented in the Sherpa MC generator is presented using the production of W-bosons in conjunction with up to three jets as an example. Corresponding results computed at next-to leading order in QCD and including parton shower corrections are compared to recent experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider.
In this talk we present a fully automated implementation of next-to-leading order electroweak (NLO EW) corrections in OpenLoops together with Sherpa and Munich. As a first application, we present NLO QCD+EW predictions for the production of positively charged W bosons in association with up to three jets and for the production of a Z boson or photon in association with one jet.
We analyze the energy spectra of $single$ b-jets and B-hadrons resulting from the production and decay of top quarks within the SM at the LHC at the NLO QCD. For both hadrons and jets, we calculate the correlation of the peak of the spectrum with the top quark mass, considering the "energy-peak" as an observable to determine the top quark mass. Such a method is motivated by our previous work where we argued that this approach can have reduced sensitivity to the details of the production mechanism of the top quark, whether it is higher-order QCD effects or new physics contributions. As part of …
n this letter we investigate the various processes that can contribute to a final state consisting of a lepton, missing transverse momentum and two jets at Next to Leading Order (NLO) at the Tevatron. In particular we consider the production of W/Z + 2 jets, diboson pairs, single top and the tt process with both fully leptonic and semi-leptonic decays. We present distributions for the invariant mass of the dijet system and normalisations of the various processes, accurate to NLO.
We present the NLO QCD corrections to the production of a W+W- pair and two b-jets, including the leptonic decays of the W bosons. Contributions from singly resonant and non-resonant top quarks are fully taken into account. We also discuss observables relevant for top quark mass measurements and top quark asymmetries.
We present next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative-QCD calculations of the cross sections for $\ell N\to h X$ and $\ell N\to \mathrm{jet}\, X$. The main feature of these processes is that the scattered lepton is not observed, so that the hard scale that makes them perturbative is set by the transverse momentum of the hadron or jet. Kinematically, the two processes thus become direct analogs of single-inclusive production in hadronic collisions which, as has been pointed out in the literature, makes them promising tools for exploring transverse spin phenomena in QCD when the incident nucleon i…
The moments of the single inclusive momentum distribution of hadrons in QCD jets, are studied in the next-to-modified-leading-log approximation (NMLLA) including next-to-leading-order (NLO) corrections to the alpha_s strong coupling. The evolution equations are solved using a distorted Gaussian parametrisation, which successfully reproduces the spectrum of charged hadrons of jets measured in e+e- collisions. The energy dependencies of the maximum peak, multiplicity, width, kurtosis and skewness of the jet hadron distribution are computed analytically. Comparisons of all the existing jet data m…
Searches for invisible Higgs decays in weak boson fusion are a well-known laboratory for jets and QCD studies. We present a series of results on tagging jets and central jet activity. First, precision analyses of the central jet activity require full control of single top production in some analyses. Second, the rate dependence on the size of the tagging jets is not limited to weak boson fusion. For the first time, we show how subjet information on the tagging jets and on the additional jet activity can be used to extract the Higgs signal. The additional observables relieve some of the pressur…
We study the production of jets in hadronic collisions, by computing all contributions proportional to $α_S^nα^m$, with $n+m=2$ and $n+m=3$. These correspond to leading and next-to-leading order results, respectively, for single-inclusive and dijet observables in a perturbative expansion that includes both QCD and electroweak effects. We discuss issues relevant to the definition of hadronic jets in the context of electroweak corrections, and present sample phenomenological predictions for the 13-TeV LHC. We find that both the leading and next-to-leading order contributions largely respect the …
