NNLO QCD corrections to jet production in deep inelastic scattering

TL;DR

This work delivers the full NNLO QCD corrections for jet production in deep inelastic scattering, implemented via antenna subtraction in the NNLOjet framework. It demonstrates improved perturbative convergence for inclusive jet observables and reveals sizable NNLO effects for di-jet observables, particularly at low Q^2 and low p_T, while also addressing infrared sensitivities linked to event selections. The results enable more precise determinations of the gluon distribution and the strong coupling α_s from HERA jet data and pave the way for NNLO-consistent global PDF fits. Overall, the study advances precision QCD phenomenology in DIS and informs scale-setting strategies and experimental analyses.

Abstract

Hadronic jets in deeply inelastic electron-proton collisions are produced by the scattering of a parton from the proton with the virtual gauge boson mediating the interaction. The HERA experiments have performed precision measurements of inclusive single jet production and di-jet production in the Breit frame, which provide important constraints on the strong coupling constant and on parton distributions in the proton. We describe the calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to these processes, and assess their size and impact. A detailed comparison with data from the H1 and ZEUS experiments highlights that inclusive single jet production displays a better perturbative convergence than di-jet production. We also observe that the event selection cuts in some of the di-jet measurements of both H1 and ZEUS induce an infrared sensitivity that destabilises the perturbative stability of the predictions. Our results open up new opportunities for QCD precision studies with jet production observables in deep inelastic scattering.

Figures (16)

• Figure 1: An illustration of the basic hard scattering process in the Breit frame with incoming proton momentum $P$, incoming lepton momentum $k$, virtual boson exchange momentum $q$, outgoing proton momentum $P'$ and outgoing lepton momentum $k'$.
• Figure 2: A subset of Feynman diagrams contributing to the matrix element $B_{2}^{\gamma,0}(3_{q},\hat{1}_{g},2_{g},4_{\bar{q}})$ with indicative momentum labels for the external legs.
• Figure 3: Quark- and gluon-initiated contributions to the inclusive jet transverse momentum distribution at NLO and NNLO.
• Figure 4: Contributions to inclusive jet production ($k_T$-algorithm with $R_0=1$) from first, second, third, and fourth jet.
• Figure 5: Inclusive jet production cross section as a function of the jet transverse momentum $p_{T,B}$ in bins of $Q^2$, compared to H1 data.