Showing papers on "Parton published in 2013"

Total Top-Quark Pair-Production Cross Section at Hadron Colliders Through O ( α S 4 )

Abstract: We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) quantum chromodynamics (QCD) correction to the total cross section for the reaction $gg\ensuremath{\rightarrow}t\overline{t}+X$. Together with the partonic channels we computed previously, the result derived in this Letter completes the set of NNLO QCD corrections to the total top pair-production cross section at hadron colliders. Supplementing the fixed order results with soft-gluon resummation with next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, we estimate that the theoretical uncertainty of this observable due to unknown higher order corrections is about 3% at the LHC and 2.2% at the Tevatron. We observe a good agreement between the standard model predictions and the available experimental measurements. The very high theoretical precision of this observable allows a new level of scrutiny in parton distribution functions and new physics searches.

Parton physics on a Euclidean lattice.

Abstract: I show that the parton physics related to correlations of quarks and gluons on the light cone can be studied through the matrix elements of frame-dependent, equal-time correlators in the large momentum limit. This observation allows practical calculations of parton properties on a Euclidean lattice. As an example, I demonstrate how to recover the leading-twist quark distribution by boosting an equal-time correlator to a large momentum.

QCD matrix elements + parton showers. The NLO case

Abstract: We present a process-independent technique to consistently combine next-to-leading order parton-level calculations of varying jet multiplicity and parton showers. Double counting is avoided by means of a modified truncated shower scheme. This method preserves both the fixed-order accuracy of the parton-level result and the logarithmic accuracy of the parton shower. We discuss the renormalisation and factorisation scale dependence of the approach and present results from an automated implementation in the SHERPA event generator using the test case of W -boson production at the Large Hadron Collider. We observe a dramatic reduction of theoretical uncertainties compared to existing methods which underlines the predictive power of our novel technique.

Quadrupole anisotropy in dihadron azimuthal correlations in central d+Au collisions at √sNN=200 GeV

Abstract: The PHENIX collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reports measurements of azimuthal dihadron correlations near midrapidity in d + Au collisions at root s(NN) = 200 GeV. These measurements complement recent analyses by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involving central p + Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 5.02 TeV, which have indicated strong anisotropic long-range correlations in angular distributions of hadron pairs. The origin of these anisotropies is currently unknown. Various competing explanations include parton saturation and hydrodynamic flow. We observe qualitatively similar, but larger, anisotropies in d + Au collisions at RHIC compared to those seen in p + Pb collisions at the LHC. The larger extracted upsilon(2) values in d + Au are consistent with expectations from hydrodynamic calculations owing to the larger expected initial-state eccentricity compared with that from p + Pb collisions. When both are divided by an estimate of the initial-state eccentricity the scaled anisotropies follow a common trend with multiplicity that may extend to heavy ion data at RHIC and the LHC, where the anisotropies are widely thought to arise from hydrodynamic flow.

Merging Multi-leg NLO Matrix Elements with Parton Showers

Abstract: We discuss extensions of multi-jet matrix element and parton shower merging approaches, to also include next-to-leading order accuracy. Specifically, we generalise the so-called CKKW-L prescription and the recently developed unitarised matrix element + parton shower (UMEPS) scheme. Endowing tree-level merging methods with NLO corrections greatly enhances the perturbative accuracy of parton shower Monte Carlo programs. To generalise the CKKW-L approach, we augment the Nils-Lavesson-Leif-Lonnblad (NL3) scheme, which was previously developed for e+e−-annihilation, with a careful treatment of parton densities. This makes the application of the NL3 method to hadronic collisions possible. NL3 is further updated to use for more readily accessible next-to-leading order input calculations. We also extend the UMEPS scheme to NLO accuracy. The resulting approach, dubbed unitarised next-to-leading order + parton shower (UNLOPS) merging, does not inherit problematic unitarity-breaking features of CKKW-L, and thus allows for a theoretically more appealing definition of NLO order merging. Both schemes have been implemented in PYTHIA8. We present results for the merging of W- and Higgs-production events, where the zero- and one-jet contribution are corrected to next-to-leading order simultaneously, and higher jet multiplicities are described by tree-level matrix elements. We find that NL3 and UNLOPS yield a very similar description for W production. For Higgs production however, UNLOPS produces more stable results. The implementation of the NLO merging procedures is completely general and can be used for higher jet multiplicities and other processes, subject to the availability of programs able to correctly generate the corresponding partonic states to leading and next-to-leading order accuracy.

Combination and QCD analysis of charm production cross section measurements in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA

Abstract: Measurements of open charm production cross sections in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA from the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations are combined. Reduced cross sections \(\sigma_{\rm red}^{c\bar{c}}\) for charm production are obtained in the kinematic range of photon virtuality 2.5≤Q2≤2000 GeV2 and Bjorken scaling variable 3⋅10−5≤x≤5⋅10−2. The combination method accounts for the correlations of the systematic uncertainties among the different data sets. The combined charm data together with the combined inclusive deep-inelastic scattering cross sections from HERA are used as input for a detailed NLO QCD analysis to study the influence of different heavy flavour schemes on the parton distribution functions. The optimal values of the charm mass as a parameter in these different schemes are obtained. The implications on the NLO predictions for W± and Z production cross sections at the LHC are investigated. Using the fixed flavour number scheme, the running mass of the charm quark is determined.

Heavy-quarkonium suppression in p-A collisions from parton energy loss in cold QCD matter

Abstract: The effects of parton energy loss in cold nuclear matter on heavy-quarkonium suppression in p-A collisions are studied. It is shown from first principles that at large quarkonium energy E and small production angle in the nucleus rest frame, the medium- induced energy loss scales as E. Using this result, a phenomenological model depending on a single free parameter is able to reproduce J/ψ andsuppression data in a broad x F - range and at various center-of-mass energies. These results strongly support energy loss as the dominant effect in heavy-quarkonium suppression in p-A collisions. Predictions for J/ψ andsuppression in p-Pb collisions at the LHC are made. It is argued that parton energy loss scaling as E should generally apply to hadron production in p-A collisions, such as light hadron or open charm production.

Measurements of differential jet cross sections in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with the CMS detector

Abstract: Measurements of inclusive jet and dijet production cross sections are presented. Data from LHC proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV, corresponding to 5.0 fb-1 of integrated luminosity, have been collected with the CMS detector. Jets are reconstructed up to rapidity 2.5, transverse momentum 2 TeV, and dijet invariant mass 5 TeV, using the anti-kT clustering algorithm with distance parameter R=0.7. The measured cross sections are corrected for detector effects and compared to perturbative QCD predictions at next-to-leading order, using five sets of parton distribution functions.

A perturbative framework for jet quenching

Abstract: We present a conceptually new framework for describing jet evolution in the dense medium produced in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions using perturbative QCD and its implementation into the Monte Carlo event generator Jewel. The rescattering of hard partons in the medium is modelled by infrared continued pQCD matrix elements supplemented with parton showers. The latter approximate higher order real-emission matrix elements and thus generate medium-induced gluon emissions. The interplay between different emissions is governed by their formation times. The destructive interference between subsequent scattering processes, the non-Abelian version of the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect, is also taken into account. In this way the complete radiation pattern is consistently treated in a uniform way. Results obtained within this minimal and theoretically well constrained framework are compared with a variety of experimental data susceptible to jet-quenching effects at both RHIC and the LHC. Overall, a good agreement between data and simulation is found. This new framework also allows to identify and quantify the dominant uncertainties in the simulation, and we show some relevant examples for this.

Global parton distributions with nuclear and finite- Q 2 corrections

Abstract: We present three new sets of next-to-leading order parton distribution functions (PDFs) determined by global fits to a wide variety of data for hard scattering processes. The analysis includes target mass and higher twist corrections needed for the description of deep inelastic scattering data at large x and low Q 2 , and nuclear corrections for deuterium targets. The PDF sets correspond to three different models for the nuclear effects, and provide a more realistic uncertainty range for the d quark PDF, in particular, compared with previous fits. We describe the PDF error sets for each choice of the nuclear corrections, and provide a user interface for utilizing the distributions.

Medium-induced QCD cascade: democratic branching and wave turbulence.

Abstract: We study the average properties of the gluon cascade generated by an energetic parton propagating through a quark-gluon plasma. We focus on the soft, medium-induced emissions which control the energy transport at large angles with respect to the leading parton. We show that the effect of multiple branchings is important. In contrast with what happens in a usual QCD cascade in vacuum, medium-induced branchings are quasidemocratic, with offspring gluons carrying sizable fractions of the energy of their parent gluon. This results in an efficient mechanism for the transport of energy toward the medium, which is akin to wave turbulence with a scaling spectrum $\ensuremath{\sim}1/\sqrt{\ensuremath{\omega}}$. We argue that the turbulent flow may be responsible for the excess energy carried by very soft quanta, as revealed by the analysis of the dijet asymmetry observed in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.

Color reconnection and flowlike patterns in pp collisions.

Abstract: Increasingly, with the data collected at the LHC we are confronted with the possible existence of flow in pp collisions. In this work, we show that PYTHIA 8 produces flowlike effects in events with multiple hard subcollisions due to color string formations between final partons from independent hard scatterings, the so-called color reconnection. We present studies of different identified hadron observables in pp collisions at 7 TeV. Studies have been done both for minimum bias and multiplicity intervals in events with and without color reconnection to isolate the flowlike effect.

Model independent evolution of transverse momentum dependent distribution functions (TMDs) at NNLL

Abstract: We discuss the evolution of the eight leading-twist transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions, which turns out to be universal and spin independent. By using the highest order perturbatively calculable ingredients at our disposal, we perform the resummation of the large logarithms that appear in the evolution kernel of transverse momentum distributions up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithms (NNLL), thus obtaining an expression for the kernel with highly reduced model dependence. Our results can also be obtained using the standard CSS approach when a particular choice of the b ∗ prescription is used. In this sense, and while restricted to the perturbative domain of applicability, we consider our results as a “prediction” of the correct value of b max which is very close to 1.5 GeV−1. We explore under which kinematical conditions the effects of the non-perturbative region are negligible, and hence the evolution of transverse momentum distributions can be applied in a model independent way. The application of the kernel is illustrated by considering the unpolarized transverse momentum dependent parton distribution function and the Sivers function.

Generalized parton distributions in the valence region from deeply virtual compton scattering

Abstract: This work reviews the recent developments in the field of generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and deeply virtual Compton scattering in the valence region, which aim at extracting the quark structure of the nucleon. We discuss the constraints which the present generation of measurements provide on GPDs, and examine several state-of-the-art parametrizations of GPDs. Future directions in this active field are discussed.

Combining higher-order resummation with multiple NLO calculations and parton showers in GENEVA

Abstract: We extend the lowest-order matching of tree-level matrix elements with parton showers to give a complete description at the next higher perturbative accuracy in α s at both small and large jet resolutions, which has not been achieved so far. This requires the combination of the higher-order resummation of large Sudakov logarithms at small values of the jet resolution variable with the full next-to-leading-order (NLO) matrix-element corrections at large values. As a by-product, this combination naturally leads to a smooth connection of the NLO calculations for different jet multiplicities. In this paper, we focus on the general construction of our method and discuss its application to e + e − and pp collisions. We present first results of the implementation in the Geneva Monte Carlo framework. We employ N-jettiness as the jet resolution variable, combining its next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic resummation with fully exclusive NLO matrix elements, and Pythia 8 as the backend for further parton showering and hadronization. For hadronic collisions, we take Drell-Yan production as an example to apply our construction. For e + e − → jets, taking α s (m Z) = 0.1135 from fits to LEP thrust data, together with the Pythia 8 hadronization model, we obtain good agreement with LEP data for a variety of 2-jet observables.

Jet Charge at the LHC

Abstract: Knowing the charge of the parton initiating a light-quark jet could be extremely useful both for testing aspects of the standard model and for characterizing potential beyond-the-standard-model signals. We show that despite the complications of hadronization and out-of-jet radiation such as pileup, a weighted sum of the charges of a jet's constituents can be used at the LHC to distinguish among jets with different charges. Potential applications include measuring electroweak quantum numbers of hadronically decaying resonances or supersymmetric particles, as well as standard model tests, such as jet charge in dijet events or in hadronically decaying W bosons in tt[over ¯] events. We develop a systematically improvable method to calculate moments of these charge distributions by combining multihadron fragmentation functions with perturbative jet functions and pertubative evolution equations. We show that the dependence on energy and jet size for the average and width of the jet charge can be calculated despite the large experimental uncertainty on fragmentation functions. These calculations can provide a validation tool for data independent of Monte Carlo fragmentation models.

Parton Distribution Benchmarking with LHC Data

Abstract: We present a detailed comparison of the most recent sets of NNLO PDFs from the ABM, CT, HERAPDF, MSTW and NNPDF collaborations. We compare parton dis- tributions at low and high scales and parton luminosities relevant for LHC phenomenology. We study the PDF dependence of LHC benchmark inclusive cross sections and differential distributions for electroweak boson and jet production in the cases in which the experimen- tal covariance matrix is available. We quantify the agreement between data and theory by computing the � 2 for each data set with all the various PDFs. PDF comparisons are per- formed consistently for common values of the strong coupling. We also present a benchmark comparison of jet production at the LHC, comparing the results from various available codes and scale settings. Finally, we discuss the implications of the updated NNLO PDF sets for the combined PDF+�s uncertainty in the gluon fusion Higgs production cross section.

Medium modification of γ jets in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract: Two puzzling features in the experimental study of jet quenching in central Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC are explained within a linearized Boltzmann transport model for jet propagation. A γ-tagged jet is found to lose about 15% of its initial energy while its azimuthal angle remains almost unchanged due to rapid cooling of the medium. The reconstructed jet fragmentation function is found to have some modest enhancement at both small and large fractional momenta as compared to that in the vacuum because of the increased contribution of leading particles to the reconstructed jet energy and induced gluon radiation and recoiled partons. A γ-tagged jet fragmentation function is proposed that is more sensitive to jet-medium interaction and the jet transport parameter in the medium. The effects of recoiled medium partons on the reconstructed jets are also discussed.

NLO QCD matrix elements + parton showers in e+e− → hadrons

Abstract: We present a new approach to combine multiple NLO parton-level calculations matched to parton showers into a single inclusive event sample. The method provides a description of hard multi-jet configurations at next-to leading order in the perturbative expansion of QCD, and it is supplemented with the all-orders resummed modelling of jet fragmentation provided by the parton shower. The formal accuracy of this technique is discussed in detail, invoking the example of electron-positron annihilation into hadrons. We focus on the effect of renormalisation scale variations in particular. Comparison with experimental data from LEP underlines that this novel formalism describes data with a theoretical accuracy that has hitherto not been achieved in standard Monte Carlo event generators.

Search for narrow resonances using the dijet mass spectrum in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

Abstract: Results are presented of a search for the production of new particles decaying to pairs of partons (quarks, antiquarks, or gluons), in the dijet mass spectrum in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.0 inverse femtobarns, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2012. No significant evidence for narrow resonance production is observed. Upper limits are set at the 95% confidence level on the production cross section of hypothetical new particles decaying to quark-quark, quark-gluon, or gluon-gluon final states. These limits are then translated into lower limits on the masses of new resonances in specific scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. The limits reach up to 4.8 TeV, depending on the model, and extend previous exclusions from similar searches performed at lower collision energies. For the first time mass limits are set for the Randall-Sundrum graviton model in the dijet channel.

Progress in the Determination of the Partonic Structure of the Proton

Abstract: We review the state of the art of the determination of the parton substructure of the nucleon, as expressed in terms of parton distribution functions (PDFs) and probed in high-energy lepton–hadron and hadron–hadron collisions. We also assess their implications for current precision collider phenomenology, in particular at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We review the theoretical foundations of PDF determination: how cross sections are expressed in terms of PDFs by use of perturbative QCD factorization and evolution, the methodology used to extract PDFs from experimental data, and how different physical processes can be used to constrain different PDFs. We summarize current knowledge of PDFs and the limitations in accuracy that this knowledge currently entails for the computation of hadron collider processes, in particular at the LHC. We discuss the current main sources of theoretical and phenomenological uncertainties and the direction of progress toward their reduction in the future.

Nucleon form factors, generalized parton distributions and quark angular momentum

Abstract: We extract the individual contributions from u and d quarks to the Dirac and Pauli form factors of the proton, after a critical examination of the available measurements of electromagnetic nucleon form factors. From this data we determine generalized parton distributions for valence quarks, assuming a particular form for their functional dependence. The result allows us to study various aspects of nucleon structure in the valence region. In particular, we evaluate Ji’s sum rule and estimate the total angular momentum carried by valence quarks at the scale μ=2 GeV to be $J_{v}^{u} = 0.230^{+ 0.009}_{- 0.024}$ and $J_{v}^{d} = -0.004^{+ 0.010}_{- 0.016}$ .

Single soft gluon emission at two loops

Abstract: We study the single soft-gluon current at two loops with two energetic partons in massless perturbative QCD, which describes, for example, the soft limit of the two-loop amplitude for gg → Hg. The results are presented as Laurent expansions in ϵ in D = 4 − 2ϵ spacetime dimension. We calculate the expansion to order ϵ 2 analytically, which is a necessary ingredient for Higgs production at hadron colliders at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in the soft-virtual approximation. We also give two-loop results of the single soft-gluon current in $ \mathcal{N}=4 $ Super-Yang-Mills theory, and find that it has uniform transcendentality. By iteration relation of splitting amplitudes, our calculations can determine the three-loop single soft-gluon current to order ϵ 0 in $ \mathcal{N}=4 $ Super-Yang-Mills theory in the limit of large N c .

Measurement of the production cross section of jets in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract: Measurements of the production of jets of particles in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV are presented, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Inclusive and differential jet cross sections in Z events, with Z decaying into electron or muon pairs, are measured for jets with transverse momentum p(T) > 30 GeV and rapidity vertical bar y vertical bar < 4.4. The results are compared to next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations, and to predictions from different Monte Carlo generators based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order matrix elements supplemented by parton showers.