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 the NLO improvement over the original proposal, we assess the residual sensitivity of the extracted top quark mass to perturbative effects both in top quark production and decay. For a 1% jet energy scale uncertainty (and assuming negligible statistical error), the top quark mass can then be extracted using the energy-peak of b-jets with an error +- (1.2 (exp) + 0.6(th)) GeV. We note that recently the CMS collaboration reported a top quark mass measurement based on the original proposal (with b-jets) so that our result contributes to a precise evaluation of the associated theory uncertainty. In view of the dominant jet energy scale uncertainty in the measurement using b-jets, we also investigate the extraction of the top quark mass from the energy-peak of the corresponding B-hadrons which, in principle, can be measured without this uncertainty. The calculation of the B-hadron energy spectrum is carried out using fragmentation functions at NLO. The dependence on the fragmentation scale turns out to be the largest theoretical uncertainty in this extraction of top quark mass. Future improvement of the treatment of bottom quark hadronization can reduce this uncertainty, rendering methods based on the B-hadron energy-peak competitive for the top quark mass measurement.
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.
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 …
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 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 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 a next-to-leading order (NLO) treatment of the production of a new charged heavy vector boson, generically called W', at hadron colliders via the Drell-Yan process. We fully consider the interference effects with the Standard Model W boson and allow for arbitrary chiral couplings to quarks and leptons. We present results at both leading order (LO) and NLO in QCD using the MC@NLO/Herwig++ and POWHEG methods. We derive theoretical observation curves on the mass-width plane for both the LO and NLO cases at different collider luminosities. The event generator used, Wpnlo, is fully custo…
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.
This short summary reviews the recent progress in the computation of higher-order corrections to W+b W-antib production. In addition, new phenomenological studies reveal potential problems that may affect precision measurements at the LHC.
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.
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 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.
In TeV scale gravity models, for dilepton production at hadron colliders, we present the NLO-QCD corrections for the double differential cross section in the invariant mass and scattering angle. For both ADD and RS models, the quantitative impact of QCD corrections for extra dimension searches at LHC and Tevatron are investigated. We present the K-factors for both ADD and RS models at LHC and Tevatron. Inclusion of QCD corrections to NLO stabilises the cross section with respect to scale variations.
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…
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.
We present new results for next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak (EW) corrections to double polarization signals in the $WZ$ production channel at the LHC using the $e^+ν_e μ^+ μ^-$ final state. It is found that the EW corrections are most sizable in the transverse momentum distributions of the doubly longitudinal polarization, being around -10% compared to the NLO QCD prediction at $p_{T,e}\approx 200$ GeV, which is in the accessible energy range of the current LHC data.
We present a full next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to diphoton production at the hadron colliders in both standard model and ADD model. The invariant mass and rapidity distributions of the diphotons are obtained using a semi-analytical two cut-off phase space slicing method which allows for a successful numerical implementation of various kinematical cuts used in the experiments. The fragmentation photons are systematically removed using smooth-cone-isolation cuts on the photons. The NLO QCD corrections not only stabilise the perturbative predictions but also enhance the production …
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.
A central ingredient in establishing the properties of the newly discovered Higgs-like boson is to isolate its production via vector boson fusion (VBF). With the typical experimental selection cuts, the VBF sample is contaminated by a 25% fraction from Higgs + 2 jet production via gluon fusion (ggF) which has large perturbative uncertainties. We perform a detailed study of the perturbative uncertainties in the NLO predictions for pp -> H+2 jets via ggF used by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, with the VBF selection cuts of their current H -> gamma gamma analyses. We discuss in detail the appl…
In this work we complete the investigation of the recently introduced energy-energy correlation (EEC) function in hadronic Higgs decays at next-to-leading order (NLO) in fixed-order perturbation theory in the limit of vanishing light quark masses. The full analytic NLO result for the previously unknown EEC in the $H \to q \bar{q} + X$ channel is given in terms of classical polylogarithms and cross-checked against a numerical calculation. In addition to that, we discuss further corrections to predictions of the Higgs EEC event shape variable, including quark mass corrections, effects of parton …
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 present next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD predictions to $W^+W^-$ production in association with up to three jets at hadron colliders. We include contributions from couplings of the $W$ bosons to light quarks as well as trilinear vector couplings. These processes are used in vector-boson coupling measurements, are background to Higgs signals and are needed to constrain many new physics scenarios. For the first time NLO QCD predictions are shown for electroweak di-vector boson production with three jets at a hadron collider. We show total and differential cross sections for the LHC with proton…
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.
In this article we present the next-to-leading order QCD predictions for $Wb\bar{b}+n$-jet ($n=0,1,2,3$) production at the Large Hadron Collider with $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. We work in the four-flavor number scheme with a non-vanishing bottom-quark mass and include all subprocesses at leading electroweak order as well as all heavy-fermion-loop effects. We show the impact of QCD corrections for total as well as differential cross sections and make an assessment of theoretical uncertainties of $Wb\bar{b}$ production viewed as an irreducible background to $H(\rightarrow b{\bar b})W$ studies. For the c…
Higgs boson production associated with a top quark pair is an important process in studying the nature of the newly discovered Higgs boson at the LHC. In this letter, we report on our calculations including the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD and NLO electroweak corrections to the $pp\to t\bar{t}H$ process in the standard model. We present the integrated cross sections at the $14~{\rm TeV}$ LHC and even at the future proton-proton colliders with $\sqrt{s}=33$ and $100~{\rm TeV}$. Our calculation includes the top quark subsequent decays by adopting the narrow width approximation. The kinematic …
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.
The aim of this thesis is the completion of the NLO automated framework of the MC program WHIZARD, accounting for NLO corrections in the full SM for cross sections and distributions of processes at hadron and lepton colliders. Specifically, it builds on the implemented FKS subtraction scheme for NLO QCD calculations, and extends it to automated NLO EW and QCD-EW mixed corrections. To that end, the implemented FKS scheme is generalised to systematically subtract QED and QCD infrared (IR) divergences in mixed coupling expansions. The automated computation of NLO contributions is validated for a …
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 present a complete description of top quark pair production in association with a jet in the dilepton channel. Our calculation is accurate to next-to-leading order in QCD (NLO) and includes all non-resonant diagrams, interferences and off-shell effects of the top quark. Moreover, non-resonant and off-shell effects due to the finite W gauge boson width are taken into account. This calculation constitutes the first fully realistic NLO computation for top quark pair production with a final state jet in hadronic collisions. Numerical results for differential distributions as well as total cross…
Results for the complete NLO electroweak corrections to Standard Model Higgs production via gluon fusion are included in the total cross section for hadronic collisions. Artificially large threshold effects are avoided working in the complex-mass scheme. The numerical impact at LHC (Tevatron) energies is explored for Higgs mass values up to 500 GeV (200 GeV). Assuming a complete factorization of the electroweak corrections, one finds a +5 % shift with respect to the NNLO QCD cross section for a Higgs mass of 120 GeV both at the LHC and the Tevatron. Adopting two different factorization schemes…
The QCD coupling alpha_s is determined from a combined analysis of experimental e+e- and e-p jet data confronted to theoretical predictions of the energy evolution of the parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions (FFs) moments --multiplicity, peak, width, skewness-- at low fractional hadron momentum z. The impact of approximate next-to-leading order (NLO*) corrections plus next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL) resummations, compared to previous LO+NLL calculations, is discussed. A global fit of the full set of existing data, amounting to 360 FF moments at collision energies sqrt(s)~1--200 GeV, res…
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 introduce an improvement to the FxFx matrix element merging procedure for $pp\to t \bar t W$ production at NLO in QCD with one and/or two additional jets. The main modification is an improved treatment of jets that are not logarithmically enhanced in the low transverse-momentum regime. We provide predictions for the inclusive cross section and the $t \bar t W$ differential distributions including parton-shower effects. Taking also the NLO EW corrections into account, this results in the most-accurate predictions for this process to date. We further proceed to include the on-shell LO decays …
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…
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…
Following on our earlier work on leading-logarithmic (LLR) resummations for the properties of jets with a small radius, R, we here examine the phenomenological considerations for the inclusive jet spectrum. We discuss how to match the NLO predictions with small-R resummation. As part of the study we propose a new, physically-inspired prescription for fixed-order predictions and their uncertainties. We investigate the R-dependent part of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections, which is found to be substantial, and comment on the implications for scale choices in inclusive jet calc…
We present an event-file format for the dissemination of next-to-leading-order (NLO) predictions for QCD processes at hadron colliders. The files contain all information required to compute generic jet-based infrared-safe observables at fixed order (without showering or hadronization), and to recompute observables with different factorization and renormalization scales. The files also make it possible to evaluate cross sections and distributions with different parton distribution functions. This in turn makes it possible to estimate uncertainties in NLO predictions of a wide variety of observa…
Higgs-pair production via gluon fusion is the dominant production mechanism of Higgs-boson pairs at hadron colliders. In this work, we present details of our numerical determination of the full next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD corrections to the leading top-quark loops. Since gluon fusion is a loop-induced process at leading order, the NLO calculation requires the calculation of massive two-loop diagrams with up to four different mass/energy scales involved. With the current methods, this can only be done numerically, if no approximations are used. We discuss the setup and details of our numeri…
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 summarize recent progress in the theoretical description of heavy-flavored-hadron inclusive production at next-to-leading order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme. Specifically, we discuss the influence of finite-mass effects on the determination D-meson fragmentation functions from a global fit to e^+e^- annihilation data and on the transverse-momentum distribution of B-meson hadroproduction. We also demonstrate that the fixed-flavor-number scheme, implemented with up-to-date parton density functions and strong-coupling constant, provides a surprisingly good description of B…
We present results on NLO-QCD corrections to the process e+ e- --> hadrons via photon-, Z- and graviton-exchange in the context of TeV-scale gravity models. The quantitative impact of these QCD corrections for searches of extra dimensions at a Linear Collider is briefly discussed.
