Inverse bremsstrahlung contributions to Drell-Yan like processes

TL;DR

The paper analyzes the photon-induced inverse bremsstrahlung contribution to Drell–Yan–like lepton-pair production at hadron colliders as part of the first-order electroweak corrections. It employs a massive-quark scheme and MSbar-type subtraction to handle quark-mass singularities, using MRST2004QED PDFs and the SANC framework to compute and validate the sub-process cross sections for both charged- and neutral-current channels. Numerical results show the correction is typically sub-percent but can be substantial (up to ~16%) in certain CC kinematic regions, with good agreement against existing calculations. The work demonstrates the necessity of including these photon-induced EW effects for 1%–level Drell–Yan predictions and outlines plans to integrate the results into a Monte Carlo event generator.

Abstract

The contribution of the sub-process $γq \to q' l_1\bar{l}_2$ in hadron-hadron interactions is considered. It is a part of one-loop electroweak radiative corrections for the Drell-Yan production of lepton pairs at hadron colliders. It is shown that this contribution should be taken into account aiming at the 1% accuracy of the Drell-Yan process theoretical description. Both the neutral and charged current cases are evaluated. Numerical results are presented for typical conditions of LHC experiments.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Feynman diagrams for inverse bremsstrahlung in the charged current Drell--Yan sub-process.
• Figure 2: Feynman diagrams for inverse bremsstrahlung in the neutral current Drell--Yan sub-process.
• Figure 3: The Born-level CC Drell--Yan cross section and the relative contribution of the inverse bremsstrahlung versus the transverse mass of the muon-neutrino pair.
• Figure 4: The Born-level CC Drell--Yan cross section and the relative contribution of the inverse bremsstrahlung versus the $\mu^+$ transverse momentum.
• Figure 5: The Born-level NC Drell--Yan cross section and the relative contribution of the inverse bremsstrahlung versus the invariant mass of the muon pair.