QCD Corrections to W Boson plus Heavy Quark Production at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper provides the first complete next-to-leading order QCD calculation for W boson production in association with a heavy-quark jet, keeping the heavy-quark mass explicit. Using a generalized phase-space slicing method, the authors produce fully differential predictions and assess how NLO corrections affect the sensitivity of W+heavy-quark processes to the strange quark distribution in the proton. They demonstrate that NLO corrections reduce theoretical uncertainties and reaffirm the potential of W+ charm-tagged jets to constrain s(x, μ) at μ ≈ M_W, while exploring the mass dependence and ensuring proper treatment of collinear logs via fragmentation concepts. The work lays groundwork for more detailed phenomenology by including W leptonic decays and heavy-hadron fragmentation in future studies.

Abstract

The next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of a $W$-boson in association with a jet containing a heavy quark are presented. The calculation is fully differential in the final state particle momenta and includes the mass of the heavy quark. We study for the case of the Tevatron the sensitivity of the cross section to the strange quark distribution function, the dependence of the cross section on the heavy quark mass, the transverse momentum distribution of the jet containing the heavy quark, and the momentum distribution of the heavy quark in the jet.

Figures (7)

• Figure 1: The Born graphs for $W+Q$ production in $p\bar{p}$ collisions.
• Figure 2: $s_{\rm min}$-dependence of $p\bar{p}\rightarrow W^+$ + exclusive charm-tagged one-jet production. a) Solid histogram is for the total cross section, dashed histogram is for its two-to-two component, and the dotted one is for its two-to-three component. b) Total cross section; the error bars represent the statistical errors from the Monte-Carlo integration.
• Figure 3: $\mu$-dependence for $p\bar{p}\rightarrow W^+$ + inclusive charm-tagged one-jet production. The solid line represents the NLO production (minus the $W+c\bar{c}$ contribution), the dashed line the LO production, and the dotted line the $W+c\bar{c}$ contribution.
• Figure 4: Ratio of $W$ + charm-tagged inclusive one-jet production over $W$ + inclusive untagged one-jet production as function of the jet transverse energy. The solid line is the NLO ratio and the dashed line the LO ratio. The $W+c\bar{c}$ contribution to the NLO ratio is also shown (dotted line).
• Figure 5: a) Ratio of the $W+c \bar{c}$ component of the charm-tagged one-jet inclusive cross section to the $W+gluon$ cross section, as a function of the jet tranverse energy. b) The $z$-distribution of the $W+c \bar{c}$ component.