13 research outputs found
Left-Handed W Bosons at the LHC
The production of W bosons in association with jets is an important
background to new physics at the LHC. Events in which the W carries large
transverse momentum and decays leptonically lead to large missing energy and
are of particular importance. We show that the left-handed nature of the W
coupling, combined with valence quark domination at a pp machine, leads to a
large left-handed polarization for both W^+ and W^- bosons at large transverse
momenta. The polarization fractions are very stable with respect to QCD
corrections. The leptonic decay of the W bosons translates the common
left-handed polarization into a strong asymmetry in transverse momentum
distributions between positrons and electrons, and between neutrinos and
anti-neutrinos (missing transverse energy). Such asymmetries may provide an
effective experimental handle on separating W + jets from top quark production,
which exhibits very little asymmetry due to C invariance, and from various
types of new physics.Comment: 32 pages, revtex, 17 figures, 3 tables, v2 minor corrections to ME+PS
results, no changes to conclusions, added reference
The one-loop six-dimensional hexagon integral with three massive corners
We compute the six-dimensional hexagon integral with three non-adjacent
external masses analytically. After a simple rescaling, it is given by a
function of six dual conformally invariant cross-ratios. The result can be
expressed as a sum of 24 terms involving only one basic function, which is a
simple linear combination of logarithms, dilogarithms, and trilogarithms of
uniform degree three transcendentality. Our method uses differential equations
to determine the symbol of the function, and an algorithm to reconstruct the
latter from its symbol. It is known that six-dimensional hexagon integrals are
closely related to scattering amplitudes in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, and we
therefore expect our result to be helpful for understanding the structure of
scattering amplitudes in this theory, in particular at two loops.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Driving Missing Data at Next-to-Leading Order
The prediction of backgrounds to new physics signals in topologies with large
missing transverse energy and jets is important to new physics searches at the
LHC. Following a CMS study, we investigate theoretical issues in using
measurements of gamma + 2-jet production to predict the irreducible background
to searches for missing energy plus two jets that originates from Z + 2-jet
production where the Z boson decays to neutrinos. We compute ratios of gamma +
2-jet to Z + 2-jet production cross sections and kinematic distributions at
next-to-leading order in alpha_s, as well as using a parton shower matched to
leading-order matrix elements. We find that the ratios obtained in the two
approximations are quite similar, making gamma + 2-jet production a
theoretically reliable estimator for the missing energy plus two jets
background. We employ a Frixione-style photon isolation, but we also show that
for isolated prompt photon production at high transverse momentum the
difference between this criterion and the standard cone isolation used by CMS
is small.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, RevTex, v2 minor corrections and added
reference
Missing Energy and Jets for Supersymmetry Searches
We extend our investigation of backgrounds to new physics signals, following
CMS's data-driven search for supersymmetry at the LHC. The aim is to use
different sets of cuts in gamma + 3-jet production to predict the irreducible Z
+ 3-jet background (with the Z boson decaying to neutrinos) to searches with
missing transverse energy + 3-jet signal topologies. We compute ratios of Z +
3-jet to gamma + 3-jet production cross sections and kinematic distributions at
next-to-leading order (NLO) in alpha_s. We compare these ratios with those
obtained using a parton shower matched to leading-order matrix elements
(ME+PS). This study extends our previous work [arXiv:1106.1423 [hep-ph]] on the
Z + 2-jet to gamma + 2-jet ratio. We find excellent agreement with the ratio
determined from the earlier NLO results involving two instead of three jets,
and agreement to within 10% between the NLO and ME+PS results for the ratios.
We also examine the possibility of large QCD logarithms in these processes.
Ratios of Z + n-jet to gamma + n-jet cross sections are plausibly less
sensitive to such corrections than the cross sections themselves. Their effect
on estimates of Z + 3-jet to gamma + 3-jet ratios can be assessed
experimentally by measuring the gamma + 3-jet to gamma + 2-jet production ratio
in search regions. We partially address the question of potentially large
electroweak logarithms by computing the real-emission part of the electroweak
corrections to the ratio using ME+PS, and find that it is 1% or less. Our
estimate of the remaining theoretical uncertainties in the Z to gamma ratio is
in agreement with our earlier study.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures, 8 tables, RevTe
Recommended from our members
Comparative Study of Various Algorithms for the Merging of Parton Showers and Matrix Elements in Hadronic Collisions
We compare different procedures for combining fixed-order tree-level matrix-element generators with parton showers. We use the case of W-production at the Tevatron and the LHC to compare different implementations of the so-called CKKW and MLM schemes using different matrix-element generators and different parton cascades. We find that although similar results are obtained in all cases, there are important differences
Recommended from our members
Vector Boson Jets with BlackHat and Sherpa
We review recent NLO QCD results for W, Z + 3-jet production at hadron colliders, computing using BlackHat and SHERPA, and including also some new results for Z + 3-jet production for the LHC at 7 TeV. We report new progress towards the NLO cross section for W + 4-jet production. In particular, we show that the virtual matrix elements produced by BlackHat are numerically stable. We also show that with an improved integrator and tree-level matrix elements from BlackHat, SHERPA produces well-behaved real-emission contributions. As an illustration, we present the real-emission contributions - including dipole-subtraction terms - to the p{sub T} distribution of the fourth jet, for a single subprocess with the maximum number of gluons
Recommended from our members
A Standard format for Les Houches event files
A standard file format is proposed to store process and event information, primarily output from parton-level event generators for further use by general-purpose ones. The information content is identical with what was already defined by the Les Houches Accord five years ago, but then in terms of Fortran commonblocks. This information is embedded in a minimal XML-style structure, for clarity and to simplify parsing
Ntuples for NLO events at hadron colliders
We present an event-file format for the dissemination of next-to-leading-order (NLO) predictions for QCD processes at hadron colliders. The files contain all information required to compute generic jet-based infrared-safe observables at fixed order (without showering or hadronization), and to recompute observables with different factorization and renormalization scales. The files also make it possible to evaluate cross sections and distributions with different parton distribution functions. This in turn makes it possible to estimate uncertainties in NLO predictions of a wide variety of observables without recomputing the short-distance matrix elements. The event files allow a user to choose among a wide range of commonly-used jet algorithms and jet-size parameters. We provide event files for a W or Z boson accompanied by up to four jets, and for pure-jet events with up to four jets. The files are for the Large Hadron Collider with a center of mass energy of 7 or 8 TeV. A C++ library along with a Python interface for handling these files is also provided and described in this article. The library allows a user to read the event files and recompute observables transparently for different pdf sets and factorization and renormalization scales
Recommended from our members
Precise Predictions for W 4 Jet Production at the Large Hadron Collider
We present the first next-to-leading order QCD results for W + 4-jet production at hadron colliders. Total cross sections, as well as distributions in the jet transverse momenta and in the total transverse energy HT, are provided for the initial LHC energy of {radical}s = 7 TeV. We use a leading-color approximation, known to be accurate to 3% for W production with fewer jets. The virtual matrix elements and the most complicated real-emission matrix elements are handled by the BlackHat library, based on on-shell methods. The remaining parts of the calculation, including the integration over phase space, are performed by the SHERPA package