Threshold Resummation for the Inclusive-Hadron Cross-Section in pp Collisions
Daniel de Florian, Werner Vogelsang
TL;DR
Threshold resummation for inclusive-hadron production in pp collisions addresses large near-threshold soft-gluon corrections by performing NLL resummation in Mellin space with color-channel interferences. The authors match the resummed results to NLO and apply a minimal prescription for the inverse transform, testing the approach in fixed-target and RHIC kinematics. They find significant cross-section enhancements over NLO in fixed-target regimes, improving agreement with data, while at RHIC subleading terms become important, indicating the need for further refinements. Overall, the work provides a more accurate perturbative description of high-pT hadron production and informs the interpretation of fragmentation functions and spin-dependent observables.
Abstract
We study the resummation of large logarithmic perturbative corrections to the partonic cross sections relevant for the process pp->h X at high transverse momentum of the hadron h. These corrections arise near the threshold for the partonic reaction and are associated with soft-gluon emission. We perform the resummation to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We present numerical results for the fixed-target regime and find enhancements over the next-to-leading order cross section, which significantly improve the agreement between theoretical predictions and data. We also apply the resummation for RHIC kinematics and find that subleading terms appear to play a rather important role here.