Differential distributions for t-channel single top-quark production and decay at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2017; no. 11; pp. 1 - 40
• Main Authors: Berger, Edmond L., Gao, Jun, Zhu, Hua Xing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2017; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Berlin; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: CERN; Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Decay; Elementary Particles; High energy physics; Large Hadron Collider; NLO Computations; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; QCD Phenomenology; Quantum chromodynamics; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Quarks; Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativity Theory; String Theory; Transverse momentum; NLO Computations; QCD Phenomenology
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP11(2017)158

A bstract We present a detailed phenomenological study of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections for t -channel single top (anti-)quark production and its semi-leptonic decay at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We find the NNLO corrections for the total inclusive rates at the LHC with different center of mass energies are generally smaller than the NLO corrections, indicative of improved convergence. However, they can be large for differential distributions, reaching a level of 10% or more in certain regions of the transverse momentum distributions of the top (anti-)quark and the pseudo-rapidity distributions of the leading jet in the event. In all cases the perturbative hard-scale uncertainties are greatly reduced after the NNLO corrections are included. We also show a comparison of the normalized parton-level distributions to recent data from the 8 TeV measurement of the ATLAS collaboration. The NNLO corrections tend to shift the theoretical predictions closer to the measured transverse momentum distribution of the top (anti)-quark. Importantly, for the LHC at 13 TeV, we present NNLO cross sections in a fiducial volume with decays of the top quark included.