Non-perturbative contribution to the thrust distribution in e(+)e(-) annihilation

We re-evaluate the non-perturbative contribution to the thrust distribution in $e^+e^-\to$ hadrons, in the light of the latest experimental data and the recent NNLO perturbative calculation of this quantity. By extending the calculation to NNLO+NLL accuracy, we perform the most detailed study to date of the effects of non-perturbative physics on this observable. In particular, we investigate how well a model based on a low-scale QCD effective coupling can account for such effects. We find that the difference between the improved perturbative distribution and the experimental data is consistent with a $1/Q$-dependent non-perturbative shift in the distribution, as predicted by the effective coupling model. Best fit values of $\alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1164^{+0.0028}_{-0.0026}$ and $\alpha_0(2 GeV)=0.59+/-0.03$ are obtained with $\chi^2/d.o.f.=1.09$. This is consistent with NLO+NLL results but the quality of fit is improved. The agreement in $\alpha_0$ is non-trivial because a part of the 1/Q-dependent contribution (the infrared renormalon) is included in the NNLO perturbative correction

The MC@NLO 3.2 Event Generator

This is the user's manual of MC@NLO 3.2. This package is a practical implementation, based upon the HERWIG event generator, of the MC@NLO formalism, which allows one to incorporate NLO QCD matrix elements consistently into a parton shower framework. Processes available in this version include the hadroproduction of single vector and Higgs bosons, vector boson pairs, heavy quark pairs, single top, lepton pairs, and Higgs bosons in association with a W or Z. Spin correlations in decays are included for all processes except ttbar, single-t, ZZ, and WZ production. This document is self-contained, but we emphasise the main differences with respect to previous versions

The MC@NLO 3.3 Event Generator

This is the user's manual of MC@NLO 3.3. This package is a practical implementation, based upon the HERWIG event generator, of the MC@NLO formalism, which allows one to incorporate NLO QCD matrix elements consistently into a parton shower framework. Processes available in this version include the hadroproduction of single vector and Higgs bosons, vector boson pairs, heavy quark pairs, single top, lepton pairs, and Higgs bosons in association with a W or Z. Spin correlations are included for all processes except ZZ and WZ production. This document is self-contained, but we emphasise the main differences with respect to previous versions

The MC@NLO 3.2 Event Generator

This is the user's manual of MC@NLO 3.2. This package is a practical implementation, based upon the HERWIG event generator, of the MC@NLO formalism, which allows one to incorporate NLO QCD matrix elements consistently into a parton shower framework. Processes available in this version include the hadroproduction of single vector and Higgs bosons, vector boson pairs, heavy quark pairs, single top, lepton pairs, and Higgs bosons in association with a W or Z. Spin correlations in decays are included for all processes except ttbar, single-t, ZZ, and WZ production. This document is self-contained, but we emphasise the main differences with respect to previous versions

The MC@NLO 3.3 Event Generator

This is the user's manual of MC@NLO 3.3. This package is a practical implementation, based upon the HERWIG event generator, of the MC@NLO formalism, which allows one to incorporate NLO QCD matrix elements consistently into a parton shower framework. Processes available in this version include the hadroproduction of single vector and Higgs bosons, vector boson pairs, heavy quark pairs, single top, lepton pairs, and Higgs bosons in association with a W or Z. Spin correlations are included for all processes except ZZ and WZ production. This document is self-contained, but we emphasise the main differences with respect to previous versions

Jet fragmentation in e^+e^- annihilation

A short review of theoretical and experimental results on fragmentation in e^+e^- annihilation is presented. Starting with an introduction of the concept of fragmentation functions in e^+e^- annihilation, aspects of scaling violation, multiplicities, small and large x, longitudinal, gluon, light and heavy quark fragmentation are summarized

Matching NLO QCD and parton showers in heavy flavour production

We apply the MC@NLO approach to the process of heavy flavour hadroproduction. MC@NLO is a method for matching next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD calculations and parton shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, with the following features: fully exclusive events are generated, with hadronisation according to the MC model; total rates are accurate to NLO; NLO results for distributions are recovered upon expansion in \as; hard emissions are treated as in NLO computations while soft/collinear emissions are handled by the MC simulation, with the same logarithmic accuracy as the MC; matching between the hard and soft regions is smooth, and no intermediate integration steps are necessary. The method was applied previously to the hadroproduction of gauge boson pairs, which at NLO involves only initial-state QCD radiation and a unique colour structure. In heavy flavour production, it is necessary to include contributions from final-state QCD radiation and different colour flows. We present illustrative results on top and bottom production at the Tevatron and LHC

Measuring sparticle masses in non-universal string inspired models at the LHC

We demonstrate that some of the suggested five supergravity points for study at the LHC could be approximately derived from perturbative string theories or M-theory, but that charge and colour breaking minima would result. As a pilot study, we then analyse a perturbative string model with non-universal soft masses that are optimised in order to avoid global charge and colour breaking minima. By combining measurements of up to six kinematic edges from squark decay chains with data from a new kinematic variable, designed to improve slepton mass measurements, we demonstrate that a typical LHC experiment will be able to determine squark, slepton and neutralino masses with an accuracy sufficient to permit an optimised model to be distinguished from a similar standard SUGRA point. The technique thus generalizes SUSY searches at the LHC

Angular correlations of lepton pairs from vector boson and top quark decays in Monte Carlo simulations

We explain how angular correlations in leptonic decays of vector bosons and top quarks can be included in Monte Carlo parton showers, in particular those matched to NLO QCD computations. We consider the production of $n$ pairs of leptons, originating from the decays of $n$ electroweak vector bosons or of $n$ top quarks, in the narrow-width approximation. In the latter case, the information on the $n$ $b$ quarks emerging from the decays is also retained. We give results of implementing this procedure in MC@NL

Single-top production in MC@NLO

We match next-to-leading order QCD results for single-top hadroproduction with parton shower Monte Carlo simulations, according to the prescription of the MC@NLO formalism. In this way, we achieve the first practical implementation in MC@NLO of a process that has both initial- and final-state collinear singularities. We show that no difficulties of principle arise from this complication, and present selected results relevant to the Tevatron