Single top production and decay at next-to-leading order

TL;DR

This work delivers the first NLO Monte Carlo treatment of single top production that includes the leptonic decay of the top quark with QCD radiation in both production and decay. It develops and implements a specialized subtraction method to handle soft and collinear radiation in the decay, integrating seamlessly with the dipole formalism extended to massive quarks. The study provides NLO predictions for signal and major backgrounds, analyzes key discriminants like H_T and Qη, and assesses the impact of decay radiation on cross sections and distributions relevant to Tevatron Run II searches. Overall, the results highlight the importance of NLO accuracy for single-top analyses and underscore the experimental challenges in observing this process, while offering a framework for more reliable kinematic modeling and background estimation.

Abstract

We present the results of a next-to-leading order analysis of single top production including the decay of the top quark. Radiative effects are included both in the production and decay stages, using a general subtraction method. This calculation gives a good treatment of the jet activity associated with single top production. We perform an analysis of the single top search at the Tevatron, including a consideration of the main backgrounds, many of which are also calculated at next-to-leading order.

Figures (15)

• Figure 1: Initial-state radiation in the production stage.
• Figure 2: Final-state radiation in the production stage.
• Figure 3: Final-state radiation in the decay stage.
• Figure 4: Virtual radiation in the initial state.
• Figure 5: Final-state virtual radiation in the production stage.