The Higgs transverse momentum distribution in gluon fusion as a multiscale problem

We consider Higgs production in gluon fusion and in particular the prediction of the Higgs transverse momentum distribution. We discuss the ambiguities affecting the matching procedure between fixed order matrix elements and the resummation to all orders of the terms enhanced by $\log(p_T^H/m_H)$ factors. Following a recent proposal (Grazzini et al., hep-ph/1306.4581), we argue that the gluon fusion process, computed considering two active quark flavors, is a multiscale problem from the point of view of the resummation of the collinear singular terms. We perform an analysis at parton level of the collinear behavior of the $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ real emission amplitudes; relying on the collinear singularities structure of the latter, we derive an upper limit to the range of transverse momenta where the collinear approximation is valid. This scale is then used as the value of the resummation scale in the analytic resummation framework or as the value of the $h$ parameter in the POWHEG-BOX code. A variation of this scale can be used to generate an uncertainty band associated to the matching procedure. Finally, we provide a phenomenological analysis in the Standard Model, in the Two Higgs Doublet Model and in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In the two latter cases, we provide an ansatz for the central value of the matching parameters not only for a Standard Model-like Higgs boson, but also for heavy scalars and in scenarios where the bottom quark may play the dominant role.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figures; v2 matches version published in JHE

PDF uncertainties in the extraction of the W mass at LHC: a Snowmass Whitepaper

The precision measurement of the W boson mass is an important milestone for the LHC physics program in the coming years. An accurate measurement of $M_W$ allows to perform stringent consistency tests of the Standard Model by means of global electroweak fits, which in turn are sensitive to New Physics at scales potentially higher than the ones explored in direct searches. From the theoretical point of view, our limited knowledge of PDFs will be one of the dominant sources of uncertainty in ongoing and future LHC determinations of $M_W$. In this whitepaper, we have quantified the impact of PDF uncertainties in the W mass extractions from the transverse mass distribution at the LHC. The calculation has been performed using the NNPDF2.3 set, which includes direct constrains on the W boson production kinematics with data for electroweak gauge boson production from the LHC. Our results confirm previous estimates that PDF uncertainties in the determination of $M_W$ from the $m_W^T$ distribution are moderate, around 10 MeV at most. We briefly discuss also the case of the lepton $p_T$ distribution.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, contribution to Snowmass 201

PDF uncertainties on the W boson mass measurement from the lepton transverse momentum distribution

We study the charged current Drell-Yan process and we evaluate the proton parton densities uncertainties on the lepton transverse momentum distribution and their impact on the determination of the W-boson mass. We consider the global PDF sets CT10, MSTW2008CPdeut, NNPDF2.3, NNPDF3.0, MMHT2014, and apply the PDF4LHC recipe to combine the individual results, obtaining an uncertainty on MW that ranges between +-18 and +-24 MeV, depending on the final state, collider energy and kind. We discuss the dependence of the uncertainty on the acceptance cuts and the role of the individual parton densities in the final result. We remark that some PDF sets predict an uncertainty on MW of O(10 MeV); this encouraging result is spoiled, in the combined analysis of the different sets, by an important spread of the central values predicted by each group.Comment: version accepted for publication on Phys.Rev.D, one figure and two references adde

Prospects for improving the LHC W boson mass measurement with forward muons

Measurements of the $W$ boson mass are planned by the ATLAS and CMS experiments, but for the time being, these may be unable to compete with the current world average precision of 15~MeV, due to uncertainties in the PDFs. We discuss the potential of a measurement by the LHCb experiment based on the charged lepton transverse momentum $p_T^{\ell}$ spectrum in $W \to \mu\nu$ decays. The unique forward acceptance of LHCb means that the PDF uncertainties would be anti-correlated with those of $p_T^{\ell}$ based measurements by ATLAS and CMS. We compute an average of ATLAS, CMS and LHCb measurements of $m_W$ from the $p_T^{\ell}$ distribution. Considering PDF uncertainties, this average is a factor of 1.3 more precise than an average of ATLAS and CMS alone. Despite the relatively low rate of $W$ production in LHCb, we estimate that with the Run-II dataset, a measurement could be performed with sufficient experimental precision to exploit this anti-correlation in PDF uncertainties. The modelling of the lepton-pair transverse momentum distribution in the neutral current Drell-Yan process could be a limiting factor of this measurement and will deserve further studies.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitted to EPJ

Gauge invariant decomposition of 1-loop multiparticle scattering amplitudes

A simple algorithm is presented to decompose any 1-loop amplitude for scattering processes of the class 2 fermions -> 4 fermions into a fixed number of gauge-invariant form factors. The structure of the amplitude is simpler than in the conventional approaches and its numerical evaluation is made faster. The algorithm can be efficiently applied also to amplitudes with several thousands of Feynman diagrams.Comment: 6 page

Neutral current Drell-Yan with combined QCD and electroweak corrections in the POWHEG BOX

Following recent work on the combination of electroweak and strong radiative corrections to single W-boson hadroproduction in the POWHEG BOX framework, we generalize the above treatment to cover the neutral current Drell-Yan process. According to the POWHEG method, we combine both the next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak and QED multiple photon corrections with the native NLO and Parton Shower QCD contributions. We show comparisons with the predictions of the electroweak generator HORACE, to validate the reliability and accuracy of the approach. We also present phenomenological results obtained with the new tool for physics studies at the LHC.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, 1 table. One new figure, some plots with updated results, added text. Final version to appear in EPJ

Precision Measurement of the W-Boson Mass: Theoretical Contributions and Uncertainties

We perform a comprehensive analysis of electroweak, QED and mixed QCD-electroweak corrections underlying the precise measurement of the W-boson mass M_W at hadron colliders. By applying a template fitting technique, we detail the impact on M_W of next-to-leading order electroweak and QCD corrections, multiple photon emission, lepton pair radiation and factorizable QCD-electroweak contributions. As a by-product, we provide an up-to-date estimate of the main theoretical uncertainties of perturbative nature. Our results can serve as a guideline for the assessment of the theoretical systematics at the Tevatron and LHC and allow a more robust precision measurement of the W-boson mass at hadron colliders.Comment: 51 pages, 10 figures and 16 tables. Minor corrections: new citations and reference to the svn revisions of the POWHEG code. Numerical results and conclusions unchange

Lepton-pair production in association with a bbˉb\bar{b} pair and the determination of the WW boson mass

We perform a study of lepton-pair production in association with bottom quarks at the LHC based on the predictions obtained at next-to-leading order in QCD, both at fixed order and matched with a QCD parton shower. We consider a comprehensive set of observables and estimate the associated theoretical uncertainties by studying the dependence on the perturbative QCD scales (renormalisation, factorisation and shower) and by comparing different parton-shower models (Pythia8 and Herwig++) and matching schemes (MadGraph5_aMC@NLO and POWHEG). Based on these results, we propose a simple procedure to include bottom-quark effects in neutral-current Drell-Yan production, going beyond the standard massless approximation. Focusing on the inclusive lepton-pair transverse-momentum distribution $p_{\bot}^{l^+l^-}$, we quantify the impact of such effects on the tuning of the simulation of charged-current Drell-Yan observables and the $W$-boson mass determination.Comment: 47 pages, 29 figures, 1 tabl