arXiv subjects

A. Vogt

Publications and source records attributed to A. Vogt.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

On the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to heavy-quark production in deep-inelastic scattering

The contribution of quarks with masses m >> Lambda_QCD is the only part of the structure functions in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) which is not yet known at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) of perturbative QCD. We present improved partial NNLO results for the most important structure function F_2(x,Q^2) near the partonic threshold, in the high-energy (small-x) limit and at high scales Q^2 >> m^2; and employ these results to construct approximations for the gluon and quark coefficient functions which cover the full kinematic plane. The approximation uncertainties are carefully investigated, and found to be large only at very small values, x smaller about 10^-3, of the Bjorken variable.

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arXiv2016

A Critical Appraisal and Evaluation of Modern PDFs

We review the present status of the determination of parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the light of the precision requirements for the LHC in Run 2 and other future hadron colliders. We provide brief reviews of all currently available PDF sets and use them to compute cross sections for a number of benchmark processes, including Higgs boson production in gluon-gluon fusion at the LHC. We show that the differences in the predictions obtained with the various PDFs are due to particular theory assumptions made in the fits of those PDFs. We discuss PDF uncertainties in the kinematic region covered by the LHC and on averaging procedures for PDFs, such as advocated by the PDF4LHC15 sets, and provide recommendations for the usage of PDF sets for theory predictions at the LHC.

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arXiv2016

First Forcer results on deep-inelastic scattering and related quantities

We present results on the fourth-order splitting functions and coefficient functions obtained using Forcer, a four-loop generalization of the Mincer program for the parametric reduction of self-energy integrals. We have computed the respective lowest three even-N and odd-N moments for the non-singlet splitting functions and the non-singlet coefficient functions in electromagnetic and nu+nu(bar) charged-current deep-inelastic scattering, and the N=2 and N=4 results for the corresponding flavour-singlet quantities. Enough moments have been obtained for an LLL-based determination of the analytic N-dependence of the nf^3 and nf^2 parts, respectively, of the singlet and non-singlet splitting functions. The large-N limit of the latter provides the complete nf^2 contributions to the four-loop cusp anomalous dimension. Our results also provide additional evidence of a non-vanishing contribution of quartic group invariants to the cusp anomalous dimension.

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arXiv2015

Generalized threshold resummation in inclusive DIS and semi-inclusive electron-positron annihilation

We present analytic all-order results for the highest three threshold logarithms of the space-like and time-like off-diagonal splitting functions and the corresponding coefficient functions for inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) and semi-inclusive e^+ e^- annihilation. All these results, obtained through an order-by-order analysis of the structure of the corresponding unfactorized quantities in dimensional regularization, can be expressed in terms of the Bernoulli functions introduced by one of us and leading-logarithmic soft-gluon exponentials. The resulting numerical corrections are small for the splitting functions but large for the coefficient functions. In both cases more terms in the threshold expansion need to be determined in order to arrive at quantitatively reliable results.

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arXiv2015

On gamma_5 in higher-order QCD calculations and the NNLO evolution of the polarized valence distribution

We discuss the prescription for the Dirac matrix gamma_5 in dimensional regularization used in most second- and third-order QCD calculations of collider cross sections. We provide an alternative implementation of this approach that avoids the use of an explicit form of gamma_5 and of its (anti-) commutation relations in the most important case of no more than one gamma_5 in each fermion trace. This treatment is checked by computing the third-order corrections to the structure functions F_2 and g_1 in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering with axial-vector couplings to the W-bosons. We derive the so far unknown third-order helicity-difference splitting function Delta P_ns^(2)s that contributes to the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) evolution of the polarized valence quark distribution of the nucleon. This function is negligible at momentum fractions x >~ 0.3 but relevant at x << 1.

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arXiv2014

Approximate N^3LO Higgs-boson production cross section using physical-kernel constraints

The single-logarithmic enhancement of the physical kernel for Higgs production by gluon-gluon fusion in the heavy top-quark limit is employed to derive the leading so far unknown contributions, ln^{5,4,3}(1-z), to the N^3LO coefficient function in the threshold expansion. Also using knowledge from Higgs-exchange DIS to estimate the remaining terms not vanishing for z = m_H^2/s^hat -> 1, these results are combined with the recently completed soft + virtual contributions to provide an uncertainty band for the complete N^3LO correction. For the 2008 MSTW parton distributions these N^3LO contributions increase the cross section at 14 TeV by (10 +- 2)% and (3 +- 2.5)% for the standard choices mu_R = m_H and mu_R = m_H/2 of the renormalization scale. The remaining uncertainty arising from the hard-scattering cross sections can be quantified as no more than 5%, which is smaller than that due to the strong coupling and the parton distributions.

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arXiv2014

The Three-Loop Splitting Functions in QCD: The Helicity-Dependent Case

We present the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) contributions to the main splitting functions for the evolution of longitudinally polarized parton densities of hadrons in perturbative QCD. The quark-quark and gluon-quark splitting functions have been obtained by extending our previous all Mellin-N calculations to the structure function g_1 in electromagnetic deep-inelastic scattering (DIS). Their quark-gluon and gluon-gluon counterparts have been derived using third-order fixed-N calculations of structure functions in graviton-exchange DIS, relations to the unpolarized case and mathematical tools for systems of Diophantine equations. The NNLO corrections to the splitting functions are small outside the region of small momentum fractions x where they exhibit a large double-logarithmic enhancement, yet the corrections to the evolution of the parton densities can be unproblematic down to at least x about 10^{-4}.

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arXiv2014

Leading large-x logarithms of the quark-gluon contributions to inclusive Higgs-boson and lepton-pair production

We present all-order expressions for the leading double-logarithmic threshold contributions to the quark-gluon coefficient functions for inclusive Higgs-boson production in the heavy top-quark limit and for Drell-Yan lepton-pair production. These results have been derived using the structure of the unfactorized cross sections in dimensional regularization and the large-x resummation of the gluon-quark and quark-gluon splitting functions. The resummed coefficient functions, which are identical up to colour factor replacements, are similar to their counterparts in deep-inelastic scattering but slightly more complicated.

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arXiv2014

A calculation of the three-loop helicity-dependent splitting functions in QCD

We have calculated the complete matrix of three-loop helicity-difference (`polarized') splitting functions Delta P_ik^(2), i,k = q,g, in massless perturbative QCD. In this note we briefly discuss some properties of the polarized splitting functions and our non-standard determination of the hitherto missing lower-row quantities Delta P_gq^(2) and Delta P_gg^(2). The resulting next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections to the evolution of polarized parton distributions are illustrated and found to be small even at rather large values of the strong coupling constant alpha_s.

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arXiv2012

Progress on double-logarithmic large-x and small-x resummations for (semi-)inclusive hard processes

Over the past few years considerable progress has been made on the resummation of double-logarithmically enhanced threshold (large-x) and high-energy (small-x) higher-order contributions to the splitting functions for parton and fragmentation distributions and to the coefficient functions for inclusive deep-inelastic scattering and semi-inclusive e^+e^- annihilation. We present an overview of the methods which allow, in many cases, to derive the coefficients of the highest three logarithms at all orders in the strong coupling from next-to-next-to-leading order results in massless perturbative QCD. Some representative analytical and numerical results are shown, and the present limitations of these resummations are discussed.

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arXiv2012

Resummed small-x and first-moment evolution of fragmentation functions in perturbative QCD

We study the splitting functions for the evolution of fragmentation distributions and the coefficient functions for single-hadron production in semi-inclusive electron-positron annihilation in massless perturbative QCD for small values of the momentum fraction and scaling variable x, where their fixed-order approximations are completely destabilized by huge double logarithms of the form alpha_s^n 1/x ln^(2n-a) x. Complete analytic all-order expressions in Mellin-N space are presented for the resummation of these terms at the next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. The poles for the first moments, related to the evolution of hadron multiplicities, and the small-x instabilities of the next-to-leading order splitting and coefficient functions are removed by this resummation, which leads to an oscillatory small-x behaviour and functions that can be used at N=1 and down to extremely small values of x. First steps are presented towards extending these results to the higher accuracy required for an all-x combination with the state-of-the-art next-to-next-to-leading order large-x results.

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arXiv2012

On top-pair hadro-production at next-to-next-to-leading order

We study the QCD corrections at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) to the cross section for the hadronic pair-production of top quarks. We present new results in the high-energy limit using the well-known framework of k_t-factorization. We combine these findings with the known threshold corrections and present improved approximate NNLO results over the full kinematic range. This approach is employed to quantify the residual theoretical uncertainty of the approximate NNLO results which amounts to about 4% for the Tevatron and 5% for the LHC cross-section predictions. Our analytic results in the high-energy limit will provide an important check on future computations of the complete NNLO cross sections.

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arXiv2012

Generalized threshold resummation for semi-inclusive e+e- annihilation

Recently methods have been developed to extend the resummation of large-x double logarithms in inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) to terms not addressed by the soft-gluon exponentiation. Here we briefly outline our approach based on fixed-order results, the general large-x structure in dimensional regularization and the all-order factorization of mass singularities, which is directly applicable also to semi-inclusive e+e- annihilation (SIA). We then present some main results for the corresponding timelike splitting functions and transverse and longitudinal fragmentation functions. The close relation between DIS and SIA facilitates the determination of additional third-order results for the latter function which is fully known only at the next-to-leading order. Therefore all above quantities can be resummed at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy.

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arXiv2011

Resummation of small-x double logarithms in QCD: semi-inclusive electron-positron annihilation

We have derived the coefficients of the highest three 1/x-enhanced small-x logarithms of all timelike splitting functions and the coefficient functions for the transverse fragmentation function in one-particle inclusive e^+e^- annihilation at (in principle) all orders in massless perturbative QCD. For the longitudinal fragmentation function we present the respective two highest contributions. These results have been obtained from KLN-related decompositions of the unfactorized fragmentation functions in dimensional regularization and their structure imposed by the mass-factorization theorem. The resummation is found to completely remove the huge small-x spikes present in the fixed-order results for all quantities above, allowing for stable results down to very small values of the momentum fraction and scaling variable x. Our calculations can be extended to (at least) the corresponding as^n ln^(2n-l) x contributions to the above quantities and their counterparts in deep-inelastic scattering.

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arXiv2011

On the Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order Evolution of Flavour-Singlet Fragmentation Functions

We present the third-order contributions to the quark-gluon and gluon-quark timelike splitting functions for the evolution of fragmentation functions in perturbative QCD. These quantities have been derived by studying physical evolution kernels for photon- and Higgs-exchange structure functions in deep inelastic scattering and their counterparts in semi-inclusive annihilation, together with constraints from the momentum sum rule and the supersymmetric limit. For this purpose we have also calculated the second-order coefficient functions for one-hadron inclusive Higgs decay in the heavy-top limit. A numerically tolerable uncertainty remains for the quark-gluon splitting function, which does not affect the endpoint logarithms for small and large momentum fractions. We briefly discuss these limits and illustrate the numerical impact of the third-order corrections. Compact and accurate parametrizations are provided for all third-order timelike splitting functions.

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arXiv2010

Generalized double-logarithmic large-x resummation in inclusive deep-inelastic scattering

We present all-order results for the highest three large-x logarithms of the splitting functions P_qg and P_gq and of the coefficient functions C_phi,q, C_2,g and C_L,g for structure functions in Higgs- and gauge-boson exchange DIS in massless perturbative QCD. The corresponding coefficients have been derived by studying the unfactorized partonic structure functions in dimensional regularization independently in terms of their iterative structure and in terms of the constraints imposed by the functional forms of the real- and virtual-emission contributions together with their Kinoshita--Lee-Nauenberg cancellations required by the mass-factorization theorem. The numerical resummation corrections are small for the splitting functions, but partly very large for the coefficient functions. The highest two (three for C_L,g) logarithms can be resummed in a closed form in terms of new special functions recently introduced in the context of the resummation of the leading logarithms

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arXiv2010

Threshold-improved predictions for charm production in deep-inelastic scattering

We have extended previous results on the threshold expansion of the gluon coefficient function for the charm contribution to the deep-inelastic structure function F_2 by deriving all threshold-enhanced contributions at the next-to-next-to-leading order. The size of these corrections is briefly illustrated, and a first step towards extending this improvement to more differential charm-production cross sections is presented.

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arXiv2010

On higher-order flavour-singlet splitting and coefficient functions at large x

We discuss the large-x behaviour of the splitting functions P_qg and P_gq and of flavour-singlet coefficient functions, such as the gluon contributions C_2,g and C_L,g to the structure functions F_2,L, in massless perturbative QCD. These quantities are suppressed by one or two powers of 1-x with respect to the 1/(1-x) terms which are the subject of the well-known threshold exponentiation. We show that the double-logarithmic contributions to P_qg, P_gq and C_L at order alpha_s^4 can be predicted from known third-order results and present, as a first step towards a full all-order generalization, the leading-logarithmic large-x behaviour of P_qg, P_gq and C_2,g at all orders in alpha_s.

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