Resummed heavy quark production cross sections to next-to-leading logarithm

TL;DR

This study extends soft-gluon threshold resummation for heavy-quark production from LL to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy using a momentum-space cutoff approach. By applying the Kidonakis–Sterman formalism and explicit color-space eigenvalues, it quantifies how NLL terms modify top and bottom productionCross sections near threshold, revealing moderate enhancements for top quarks at the Tevatron and substantial, highly scheme- and cutoff-dependent effects for bottom quarks at fixed-target energies. The results emphasize the importance of the perturbative cutoff and scheme choice in interpreting resummed predictions and highlight the need for full NLL calculations across all angles with consistent PDFs for robust phenomenology. Overall, threshold resummation effects are non-negligible and can significantly impact heavy-quark cross sections, especially where near-threshold dynamics dominate.

Abstract

We study how next-to-leading logarithms modify predictions from leading logarithmic soft-gluon resummation in the heavy quark production cross section near threshold. Numerical results are presented for top quark production at the Fermilab Tevatron and bottom quark production at fixed-target energies.