Photoproduction is an important mode for the production of jets and electro-weak particles at lepton--lepton and lepton--hadron colliders and allows for interesting studies of exclusive production at hadron--hadron colliders. In this talk, I will review recent efforts of extending the Sherpa event generator to include the calculation of photoproduction cross sections for electron and proton beams, including the simulation of underlying events. The framework is validated using data of jet production at the HERA and LEP experiments and lepton production at the LHC. I will discuss advances towards achieving matched NLO accuracy and fully capturing the dynamics of inclusive and exclusive photoproduction at different colliders.
Precise theoretical predictions are vital for the interpretation of Standard Model measurements and facilitate conclusive searches for New Physics phenomena at the LHC. In this contribution I highlight some of the ongoing efforts in the framework of the Sherpa event generator to provide accurate and realistic simulations of Standard Model production processes. This includes the automated evaluation of NLO QCD and NLO EW corrections and their consistent consideration in the parton-shower evolution of scattering events. Particular emphasis is given to examples and applications involving the prod…
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.
We discuss exclusive $J/ψ$ photoproduction, initially in conventional collinear factorisation at NLO and then subsequently in a refined approach with a programme of low $x$ resummation and implementation of a crucial low $Q_0$ subtraction included. We compare and contrast predictions in both frameworks and remark about the possibility to constrain and ultimately determine the low $x$ and low scale gluon PDF, emphasising the significance of this for future global PDF analyses.
We present an automated implementation for the calculation of one-loop double and single Sudakov logarithms stemming from electroweak radiative corrections within the Sherpa event generation framework, based on the derivation in[1]. At high energies, these logarithms constitute the leading contributions to the full NLO electroweak corrections. As examples, we show applications for relevant processes at both the LHC and future hadron colliders, namely on-shell W boson pair production, EW-induced dijet production and electron-positron production in association with four jets, providing the first…
We present predictions for the rapidity-differential cross sections of exclusive $Υ$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We work in the framework of collinear factorization at next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative QCD, modeling the generalized parton distributions (GPDs) through the Shuvaev transform of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs). While the effects due to the GPD modeling turn out to be small, the direct NLO predictions still carry significant nPDF-originating uncertainties and depend strongly on the cho…
We present the first next-to-leading-order (NLO) perturbative QCD (pQCD) study of rapidity-differential cross sections of coherent exclusive photoproduction of $J/ψ$ mesons in heavy-ion ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) at the LHC, $dσ/dy(\text{Pb} + \text{Pb} \rightarrow \text{Pb} + J/ψ+ \text{Pb})$. For this, we account for the photon-nucleon NLO cross sections at the forward limit, the $t$ dependence using a standard nuclear form factor, and the photon fluxes of the colliding nuclei. Approximating the generalized parton distributions with their forward-limit parton distribution functions (P…
An increase in theoretical precision of Monte Carlo event generators is typically accompanied by an increased need for computational resources. One major obstacle are negative weighted events, which appear in Monte Carlo simulations with higher perturbative accuracy. While they can be handled somewhat easily in fixed-order calculations, they are a major concern for particle level event simulations. In this article, the origin of negative weights in the S-MC@NLO method is reviewed and mechanisms to reduce the negative weight fraction in simulations with the Sherpa event generator are presented,…
We present the first study of rapidity-differential cross sections of coherent exclusive $J/ψ$ photoproduction in heavy-ion ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) at the LHC, $\text{d}σ(\text{Pb}+\text{Pb}\rightarrow \text{Pb}+J/ψ+\text{Pb})/\text{d}y$, to NLO in collinear factorisation. Taking the generalised parton distributions as their forward limit counterparts, the NLO contributions in the cross sections are quantified and we show that the real part of the amplitude and quark-PDF contributions must not be neglected. We further evaluate the uncertainties arising from the scale-choice at both L…
We perform a detailed study of NLO parton shower matching uncertainties in Higgs boson pair production through gluon fusion at the LHC based on a generic and process independent implementation of NLO subtraction and parton shower matching schemes for loop-induced processes in the Sherpa event generator. We take into account the full top-quark mass dependence in the two-loop virtual corrections and compare the results to an effective theory approximation. In the full calculation, our findings suggest large parton shower matching uncertainties that are absent in the effective theory approximatio…
We calculate large mass diphoton exclusive photoproduction in the framework of collinear QCD factorization at next to leading order in αs and at leading twist. Collinear divergences of the coefficient function are absorbed by the evolution of the generalized parton distributions (GPDs). This result enlarges the existing factorization proofs to 2 -> 3 processes, opening new reactions to a trustable extraction of GPDs.
We develop the analysis of diphoton exclusive photoproduction in the kinematics where a collinear QCD factorization framework applies, namely nearly forward large invariant mass diphoton production. We work at the leading twist level and at the next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant $α_S$. We compare our predictions for cross-sections with Born order calculations for the experimental conditions accessible to JLab experiments and show the interesting sensitivity of our results to various models of generalized parton distributions (GPDs). The NLO corrections are rather large…
In the framework of collinear factorization and next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD, we make predictions for inclusive and diffractive dijet photoproduction in electron-proton and electron-nucleus scattering in the EIC kinematics. We establish kinematic ranges in the ${\bar p}_T$, ${\bar η}$, $x_A^{\rm obs}$ and $x_γ^{\rm obs}$ variables, quantify sensitivity to small-$x$ nuclear PDFs, and analyze various scenarios of factorization breaking in the case of diffractive scattering.
Photoproduction in general-purpose event generators
University of Jyvaskyla(于韦斯屈莱大学);Institut für Physik, NAWI, Universität Graz(格拉茨大学NAWI物理研究所);Teilchenphysik, Fakultät für Physik, Universität Wien(维也纳大学物理学院粒子物理系);Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham University(杜伦大学粒子物理现象学研究所)