Predictions for neutrinos and new physics from forward heavy hadron production at the LHC.

Scenarios with new physics particles feebly interacting with the Standard Model sector provide compelling candidates for dark matter searches. Geared with a set of new experiments for the detection of neutrinos and long-lived particles the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has joined the hunt for these elusive states. On the theoretical side, this emerging physics program requires reliable estimates of the associated particle fluxes, in particular those arising from heavy hadron decays. In this work, we provide state-of-the-art QCD predictions for heavy hadron production including radiative corrections at next-to-leading order and using parton distribution functions including small-x resummation at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We match our predictions to parton showers to provide a realistic description of hadronisation effects. We demonstrate the utility of our predictions by presenting the energy spectrum of neutrinos from charm hadron decays. Furthermore, we employ our predictions to estimate, for the first time, FASER's sensitivity to electrophilic ALPs, which are predominantly generated in beauty hadron decays.

Subleading power corrections for event shape variables in e+e- annihilation.

We consider subleading power corrections to event shape variables in e+e- collisions at the first order in the QCD coupling αS. We start from the jettiness variable τ2 and the y23 resolution variable for the kT jet clustering algorithm and we analytically compute the corresponding cumulative cross section. We investigate the origin of the different power suppressed contributions in the two-jet limit and trace it back to their different coverage of the phase space. We extend our analysis to the case of thrust and of the C-parameter, and we finally discuss a class of observables that depend on a continuous parameter giving different weight to central and forward emissions and we evaluate the corresponding subleading power corrections.

Exploring High-Purity Multiparton Scattering at Hadron Colliders.

Multiparton interactions are a fascinating phenomenon that occur in almost every high-energy hadron-hadron collision yet are remarkably difficult to study quantitatively. In this Letter, we present a strategy to optimally disentangle multiparton interactions from the primary scattering in a collision. That strategy enables probes of multiparton interactions that are significantly beyond the state of the art, including their characteristic momentum scale, the interconnection between primary and secondary scatters, and the pattern of three and potentially even more simultaneous hard scatterings. This opens a path to powerful new constraints on multiparton interactions for LHC phenomenology and to the investigation of their rich field-theoretical structure.

Precise Predictions for the Associated Production of a W Boson with a Top-Antitop Quark Pair at the LHC.

The production of a top-antitop quark pair in association with a W boson (tt[over ¯]W) is one of the heaviest signatures currently probed at the Large Hadron Collider. Since the first observation reported in 2015, the corresponding rates have been found to be consistently higher than the standard model predictions, which are based on next-to-leading order calculations in the QCD and electroweak interactions. We present the first next-to-next-to-leading order QCD computation of tt[over ¯]W production at hadron colliders. The calculation is exact, except for the finite part of the two-loop virtual corrections, which is estimated using two different approaches that lead to consistent results within their uncertainties. We combine the newly computed next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections with the complete next-to-leading order QCD plus electroweak results, thus obtaining the most advanced perturbative prediction available to date for the tt[over ¯]W inclusive cross section. The tension with the latest ATLAS and CMS results remains at the 1σ-2σ level.

Determination of the W-boson mass at hadron colliders.

We introduce an observable relevant for the determination of the W-boson mass mW at hadron colliders. This observable is defined as an asymmetry around the jacobian peak of the charged-lepton transverse-momentum distribution in the charged-current Drell-Yan process. We discuss the observable's theoretical prediction, presenting results at different orders in QCD, and showing its perturbative stability. Its definition as a single scalar number and its linear sensitivity to mW allow a clean extraction of the latter and a straightforward discussion of the associated theoretical systematics: a perturbative QCD uncertainty of O(±5) MeV on mW can be established by means of this observable, relying solely on charged-current Drell-Yan information. Owing to its relatively inclusive nature, the observable displays desirable properties also from the experimental viewpoint, especially for the unfolding of detector effects. We show that a measurement of this observable can lead to a competitive experimental error on mW at the LHC.

Third-Order Fiducial Predictions for Drell-Yan Production at the LHC.

The Drell-Yan process at hadron colliders is a fundamental benchmark for the study of strong interactions and the extraction of electroweak parameters. The outstanding precision of the LHC demands very accurate theoretical predictions with a full account of fiducial experimental cuts. In this Letter we present a state-of-the-art calculation of the fiducial cross section and of differential distributions for this process at third order in the strict fixed-order expansion in the strong coupling, as well as including the all-order resummation of logarithmic corrections. Together with these results, we present a detailed study of the subtraction technique used to carry out the calculation for different sets of experimental cuts, as well as of the sensitivity of the fiducial cross section to infrared physics. We find that residual theory uncertainties are reduced to the percent level and that the robustness of the predictions can be improved by a suitable adjustment of fiducial cuts.

Transverse-momentum resummation for boson plus jet production at hadron colliders.

We consider the associated production of a vector or Higgs boson with a jet in hadronic collisions. When the transverse momentum q T of the boson-jet system is much smaller than its invariant mass Q, the QCD perturbative expansion is affected by large logarithmic terms that must be resummed to all orders. We discuss the all-order resummation structure of the logarithmically enhanced contributions up to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. Resummation is performed at the differential level with respect to the kinematical variables of the boson-jet system. Soft-parton radiation produces azimuthal correlations that are fully accounted for in our framework. We present explicit analytical results for the resummation coefficients up to next-to-leading order and next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, that include the exact dependence on the jet radius.

Higgs Transverse Momentum with a Jet Veto: A Double-Differential Resummation.

We consider the simultaneous measurement of the Higgs (p_{t}^{H}) and the leading jet (p_{t}^{J}) transverse momentum in hadronic Higgs-boson production, and perform the resummation of the large logarithmic corrections that originate in the limit p_{t}^{H},p_{t}^{J}≪m_{H} up to next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic order. This work constitutes the first simultaneous (double differential) resummation for two kinematic observables of which one involves a jet algorithm in hadronic collisions, and provides an important milestone in the theoretical understanding of joint resummations. As an application, we provide precise predictions for the Higgs transverse-momentum distribution with a veto p_{t}^{J}≤p_{t}^{J,v} on the accompanying jets, whose accurate description is relevant to the Higgs precision programme at the Large Hadron Collider.

The transverse momentum spectrum of weak gauge bosons at N 3 LL + NNLO.

We present accurate QCD predictions for the transverse momentum ( p ⊥ ) spectrum of electroweak gauge bosons at the LHC for 13 TeV collisions, based on a consistent combination of a NNLO calculation at large p ⊥ and N 3 LL resummation in the small p ⊥ limit. The inclusion of higher order corrections leads to substantial changes in the shape of the differential distributions, and the residual perturbative uncertainties are reduced to the few percent level across the whole transverse momentum spectrum. We examine the ratio of p ⊥ distributions in charged- and neutral-current Drell-Yan production, and study different prescriptions for the estimate of perturbative uncertainties that rely on different degrees of correlation between these processes. We observe an excellent stability of the ratios with respect to the perturbative order, indicating a strong correlation between the corresponding QCD corrections.

Parton distributions with small-x resummation: evidence for BFKL dynamics in HERA data.

We present a determination of the parton distribution functions of the proton in which NLO and NNLO fixed-order calculations are supplemented by NLLx small-x resummation. Deep-inelastic structure functions are computed consistently at NLO+NLL x or NNLO+NLL x , while for hadronic processes small-x resummation is included only in the PDF evolution, with kinematic cuts introduced to ensure the fitted data lie in a region where the fixed-order calculation of the hard cross-sections is reliable. In all other respects, the fits use the same methodology and are based on the same global dataset as the recent NNPDF3.1 analysis. We demonstrate that the inclusion of small-x resummation leads to a quantitative improvement in the perturbative description of the HERA inclusive and charm-production reduced cross-sections in the small x region. The impact of the resummation in our fits is greater at NNLO than at NLO, because fixed-order calculations have a perturbative instability at small x due to large logarithms that can be cured by resummation. We explore the phenomenological implications of PDF sets with small-x resummation for the longitudinal structure function F L at HERA, for parton luminosities and LHC benchmark cross-sections, for ultra-high-energy neutrino-nucleus cross-sections, and for future high-energy lepton-proton colliders such as the LHeC.

Parton distributions from high-precision collider data: NNPDF Collaboration.

We present a new set of parton distributions, NNPDF3.1, which updates NNPDF3.0, the first global set of PDFs determined using a methodology validated by a closure test. The update is motivated by recent progress in methodology and available data, and involves both. On the methodological side, we now parametrize and determine the charm PDF alongside the light-quark and gluon ones, thereby increasing from seven to eight the number of independent PDFs. On the data side, we now include the D0 electron and muon W asymmetries from the final Tevatron dataset, the complete LHCb measurements of W and Z production in the forward region at 7 and 8 TeV, and new ATLAS and CMS measurements of inclusive jet and electroweak boson production. We also include for the first time top-quark pair differential distributions and the transverse momentum of the Z bosons from ATLAS and CMS. We investigate the impact of parametrizing charm and provide evidence that the accuracy and stability of the PDFs are thereby improved. We study the impact of the new data by producing a variety of determinations based on reduced datasets. We find that both improvements have a significant impact on the PDFs, with some substantial reductions in uncertainties, but with the new PDFs generally in agreement with the previous set at the one-sigma level. The most significant changes are seen in the light-quark flavor separation, and in increased precision in the determination of the gluon. We explore the implications of NNPDF3.1 for LHC phenomenology at Run II, compare with recent LHC measurements at 13 TeV, provide updated predictions for Higgs production cross-sections and discuss the strangeness and charm content of the proton in light of our improved dataset and methodology. The NNPDF3.1 PDFs are delivered for the first time both as Hessian sets, and as optimized Monte Carlo sets with a compressed number of replicas.

A determination of the charm content of the proton: The NNPDF Collaboration.

We present an unbiased determination of the charm content of the proton, in which the charm parton distribution function (PDF) is parametrized on the same footing as the light quarks and the gluon in a global PDF analysis. This determination relies on the NLO calculation of deep-inelastic structure functions in the FONLL scheme, generalized to account for massive charm-initiated contributions. When the EMC charm structure function dataset is included, it is well described by the fit, and PDF uncertainties in the fitted charm PDF are significantly reduced. We then find that the fitted charm PDF vanishes within uncertainties at a scale [Formula: see text] GeV for all [Formula: see text], independent of the value of [Formula: see text] used in the coefficient functions. We also find some evidence that the charm PDF at large [Formula: see text] and low scales does not vanish, but rather has an "intrinsic" component, very weakly scale dependent and almost independent of the value of [Formula: see text], carrying less than [Formula: see text] of the total momentum of the proton. The uncertainties in all other PDFs are only slightly increased by the inclusion of fitted charm, while the dependence of these PDFs on [Formula: see text] is reduced. The increased stability with respect to [Formula: see text] persists at high scales and is the main implication of our results for LHC phenomenology. Our results show that if the EMC data are correct, then the usual approach in which charm is perturbatively generated leads to biased results for the charm PDF, though at small x this bias could be reabsorbed if the uncertainty due to the charm mass and missing higher orders were included. We show that LHC data for processes, such as high [Formula: see text] and large rapidity charm pair production and [Formula: see text] production, have the potential to confirm or disprove the implications of the EMC data.

Pseudo-scalar Higgs boson production at N[Formula: see text]LO[Formula: see text]+N[Formula: see text]LL[Formula: see text].

We consider the production of a pseudo-scalar particle A at the LHC, and present accurate theoretical predictions for its inclusive cross section in gluon fusion. The prediction is based on combining fixed-order perturbation theory and all-order threshold resummation. At fixed order we include the exact next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) plus an approximate next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N[Formula: see text]LO[Formula: see text]) which is based on the recent computation at this order for the scalar case. We then add threshold resummation at next-to-next-to-next-to leading logarithmic accuracy (N[Formula: see text]LL[Formula: see text]). Various forms of threshold resummation are considered, differing by the treatment of subleading terms, allowing a robust estimate of the theoretical uncertainties due to missing higher orders. With particular attention to pseudo-scalar masses of 200 and 750 GeV, we also observe that perturbative convergence is much improved when resummation is included. Additionally, results obtained with threshold resummation in direct QCD are compared with analogous results as computed in soft-collinear effective theory, which turn out to be in good agreement. We provide precise predictions for pseudo-scalar inclusive cross section at 13 TeV LHC for a wide range of masses. The results are available through updated versions of the public codes ggHiggs and TROLL.