Higher-order QCD corrections for the W-boson transverse momentum distribution

TL;DR

This work advances the theoretical description of W-boson production at large transverse momentum by delivering complete NLO QCD corrections, extending soft-gluon resummation to NNLL accuracy, and deriving approximate NNLO corrections from the resummed cross section. The NNLL framework uses two-loop soft anomalous dimensions to capture dominant threshold logarithms, and the resulting approximate NNLO p_T distributions show sizable enhancements at high p_T and reduced scale uncertainty, aligning well with ATLAS data. The analysis includes detailed channel-specific expressions for the dominant partonic processes qg→Wq and qq̄→Wg and evaluates PDF-related uncertainties with MSTW2008 sets. Overall, the higher-order corrections strengthen predictions for W production at hadron colliders and have implications for precision measurements and new-physics searches in the high-p_T tail.

Abstract

We present results for W-boson production at large transverse momentum at LHC and Tevatron energies. We calculate complete next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD corrections and higher-order soft-gluon corrections to the differential cross section. The soft-gluon contributions are resummed at next-to-next-to-leading-logarithm (NNLL) accuracy via the two-loop soft anomalous dimensions. Both NLO and approximate next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) p_T distributions are presented. Our numerical results are in good agreement with recent data from the LHC.

Figures (11)

• Figure 1: LO diagrams for the process $qg \rightarrow Wq$.
• Figure 2: LO diagrams for the process $q{\bar{q}} \rightarrow Wg$.
• Figure 3: Ratios of the $W$-boson NLO $p_T$ distribution with various choices of scale to the central result with scale $\mu=p_T$ at the LHC at 7 TeV (left) and at the Tevatron (right).
• Figure 4: One-loop eikonal diagrams for $qg \rightarrow Wq$.
• Figure 5: One-loop eikonal diagrams for $q{\bar{q}} \rightarrow Wg$.