Electroweak Radiative Corrections to Weak Boson Production at Hadron Colliders

TL;DR

The paper surveys the status of electroweak radiative corrections to W and Z production in hadron collisions, emphasizing the decomposition into QED and weak components and the role of photon radiation in shaping key distributions. It demonstrates that non-resonant weak corrections become significant away from the W pole due to Sudakov-like logs and can bias W-width extractions if neglected. The authors provide evidence that full ${\cal O}(\alpha)$ corrections are now available and highlight the need for resummation or higher-order QED effects to meet Run II and LHC precision targets. They also report progress on ${\cal O}(\alpha^2)$ QED effects via two-photon radiation, underscoring the practical importance of these corrections for precision electroweak measurements.

Abstract

We summarize the status of calculations of the electroweak radiative corrections to W and Z boson production via the Drell-Yan mechanism at hadron colliders. To fully exploit the precision physics potential of the high-luminosity environment of the Fermilab Tevatron pbar p (Run II) and the CERN LHC pp colliders, it is crucial that the theoretical predictions are well under control. The envisioned precision physics program includes a precise measurement of the W boson mass and width, and the (leptonic) weak mixing angle, as well as probing the Standard Model (SM) of electroweak interactions at the highest accessible center-of-mass energies. Some numerical results are presented.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: The relative corrections to the $m(e^+ e^-)$ and $m(\mu^+ \mu^-)$ distributions in Drell-Yan production at the Tevatron due to the ${\cal O}(\alpha)$ QED corrections (from Ref. Baur:1998wa).
• Figure 2: The relative corrections to the $M_T(l \nu)$ distributions at the Tevatron when taking into account electroweak ${\cal O}(\alpha)$ corrections (from Ref. Baur:1999kt).
• Figure 3: The relative corrections to the transverse mass distribution at the Tevatron a) for electrons and b) for muons in the final state. The solid (dashed) line shows the result when the full (resonant) ${\cal O}(\alpha)$ electroweak corrections are taken into account.
• Figure 4: The ratio of the normalized transverse mass distribution to the normalized $M_T$ distribution with SM W width ($\Gamma_W(SM)=2.072$ GeV) for $p\bar{p}\to e^+\nu_e(\gamma)$ at the Tevatron when resonant ${\cal O}(\alpha)$ corrections only are taken into account. Similar results are obtained for muons in the final state.