arXiv subjects

Alexander Huss

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Huss.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Automation of antenna subtraction in colour space: gluonic processes

We present the colourful antenna subtraction method, a reformulation of the antenna subtraction scheme for next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculations in QCD. The aim of this new approach is to achieve a general and process-independent construction of the subtraction infrastructure at NNLO. We rely on the predictability of the infrared singularity structure of one- and two-loop amplitudes in colour space to generate virtual subtraction terms and, subsequently, we define an automatable procedure to systematically infer the expression of the real subtraction terms, guided by the correspondence between unintegrated and integrated antenna functions. To demonstrate the applicability of the described approach, we compute the full colour NNLO correction to gluonic three-jet production $pp(gg)\to ggg$, in the gluons-only assumption.

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arXiv2022

Di-lepton Rapidity Distribution in Drell-Yan Production to Third Order in QCD

We compute for the first time the lepton-pair rapidity distribution in the photon-mediated Drell-Yan process to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) in QCD. The calculation is based on the qT-subtraction method, suitably extended to this order for quark-antiquark initiated Born processes. Our results display sizeable QCD corrections at N$^3$LO over the full rapidity region and provide a fully independent confirmation of the recent results for the total Drell-Yan cross section at this order.

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arXiv2021

An analysis of Bayesian estimates for missing higher orders in perturbative calculations

With current high precision collider data, the reliable estimation of theoretical uncertainties due to missing higher orders (MHOs) in perturbation theory has become a pressing issue for collider phenomenology. Traditionally, the size of the MHOs is estimated through scale variation, a simple but ad hoc method without probabilistic interpretation. Bayesian approaches provide a compelling alternative to estimate the size of the MHOs, but it is not clear how to interpret the perturbative scales, like the factorisation and renormalisation scales, in a Bayesian framework. Recently, it was proposed that the scales can be incorporated as hidden parameters into a Bayesian model. In this paper, we thoroughly scrutinise Bayesian approaches to MHO estimation and systematically study the performance of different models on an extensive set of high-order calculations. We extend the framework in two significant ways. First, we define a new model that allows for asymmetric probability distributions. Second, we introduce a prescription to incorporate information on perturbative scales without interpreting them as hidden model parameters. We clarify how the two scale prescriptions bias the result towards specific scale choice, and we discuss and compare different Bayesian MHO estimates among themselves and to the traditional scale variation approach. Finally, we provide a practical prescription of how existing perturbative results at the standard scale variation points can be converted to 68%/95% credibility intervals in the Bayesian approach using the new public code MiHO.

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arXiv2021

Predicting parton energy loss in small collision systems

Medium induced parton energy loss is not conclusively established neither in very peripheral heavy-ion collisions nor in proton-ion collisions. However, the standard interpretation of azimuthal momentum anisotropies in theses systems implies some partonic rescattering. The upcoming light-ion runs at the LHC provide a unique opportunity to search for parton energy loss in different systems of similar size. Here, we make predictions for the expected parton energy loss signal in the charged hadron spectra in a system size scan at LHC. We test a large set of model assumptions against the transverse momentum and centrality dependence of the charged hadron nuclear modification factor in lead-lead and xenon-xenon collisions at the LHC. We then attempt to make a model agnostic prediction for the charged hadron nuclear modification factor in oxygen-oxygen collisions.

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arXiv2021

Discovering partonic rescattering in light nucleus collisions

We demonstrate that oxygen-oxygen (OO) collisions at the LHC provide unprecedented sensitivity to parton energy loss in a system whose size is comparable to those created in very peripheral heavy-ion collisions. With leading and next-to-leading order calculations of nuclear modification factors, we show that the baseline in the absence of partonic rescattering is known with up to 2% theoretical accuracy in inclusive OO collisions. Surprisingly, a $Z$-boson normalized nuclear modification factor does not lead to higher theoretical accuracy within current uncertainties of nuclear parton distribution functions. We study a broad range of parton energy loss models and we find that the expected signal of partonic rescattering can be disentangled from the baseline by measuring charged hadron spectra in the range $20\,\text{GeV}<p_T<100\,\text{GeV}$

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arXiv2021

Fiducial distributions in Higgs and Drell-Yan production at N$^3$LL+NNLO

The perturbative description of certain differential distributions across a wide kinematic range requires the matching of fixed-order perturbation theory with resummation of large logarithmic corrections to all orders. We present precise matched predictions for transverse-momentum distributions in Higgs boson (H) and Drell-Yan pair (DY) production as well as for the closely related ${ϕ^{*}_η}$ distribution at the LHC. The calculation is exclusive in the Born kinematics, and allows for arbitrary fiducial selection cuts on the decay products of the colour singlets, which is of primary relevance for experimental analyses. Our predictions feature very small residual scale uncertainties and display a good convergence of the perturbative series. A comparison of the predictions for DY observables to experimental data at 8 TeV shows a very good agreement within the quoted errors.

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arXiv2020

Scale and isolation sensitivity of diphoton distributions at the LHC

Precision measurements of diphoton distributions at the LHC display some tension with theory predictions, obtained at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD. We revisit the theoretical uncertainties arising from the approximation of the experimental photon isolation by smooth-cone isolation, and from the choice of functional form for the renormalisation and factorisation scales. We find that the resulting variations are substantial overall, and enhanced in certain regions. We discuss the infrared sensitivity at the cone boundaries in cone-based isolation in related distributions. Finally, we compare predictions made with alternative choices of dynamical scale and isolation prescriptions to experimental data from ATLAS at 8 TeV, observing improved agreement. This contrasts with previous results, highlighting that scale choice and isolation prescription are potential sources of theoretical uncertainty that were previously underestimated.

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arXiv2020

NNLO QCD corrections to jet production in deep inelastic scattering

Hadronic jets in deeply inelastic electron-proton collisions are produced by the scattering of a parton from the proton with the virtual gauge boson mediating the interaction. The HERA experiments have performed precision measurements of inclusive single jet production and di-jet production in the Breit frame, which provide important constraints on the strong coupling constant and on parton distributions in the proton. We describe the calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to these processes, and assess their size and impact. A detailed comparison with data from the H1 and ZEUS experiments highlights that inclusive single jet production displays a better perturbative convergence than di-jet production. We also observe that the event selection cuts in some of the di-jet measurements of both H1 and ZEUS induce an infrared sensitivity that destabilises the perturbative stability of the predictions. Our results open up new opportunities for QCD precision studies with jet production observables in deep inelastic scattering.

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arXiv2020

Phenomenology of NNLO jet production at the LHC and its impact on parton distributions

We present a systematic investigation of jet production at hadron colliders from a phenomenological point of view, with the dual aim of providing a validation of theoretical calculations and guidance to future determinations of parton distributions (PDFs). We account for all available inclusive jet and dijet production measurements from ATLAS and CMS at 7 and 8 TeV by including them in a global PDF determination, and comparing to theoretical predictions at NNLO QCD supplemented by electroweak (EW) corrections. We assess the compatibility of the PDFs, specifically the gluon, obtained before and after inclusion of the jet data. We compare the single-inclusive jet and dijet observables in terms of perturbative behaviour upon inclusion of QCD and EW corrections, impact on the PDFs, and global fit quality. In the single-inclusive case, we also investigate the role played by different scale choices and the stability of the results upon changes in modelling of the correlated experimental systematics.

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arXiv2020

Isolated photon and photon+jet production at NNLO QCD accuracy

We describe the calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to isolated photon and photon-plus-jet production, and discuss how the experimental hadron-level photon definition and isolation criteria can be approximated in the theoretical parton-level calculation. The NNLO corrections lead to a considerable reduction of the theory uncertainty on the predictions, typically to less than five per cent, and enable an improved description of experimental measurements from ATLAS and CMS.

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arXiv2020

NNLO QCD Corrections for Higgs-plus-jet Production in the Four-lepton Decay Mode

We present the computation of Higgs boson production in association with a jet at the LHC including QCD corrections up to NNLO. The calculation includes the subsequent decay of the Higgs boson into four leptons, allowing for the full reconstruction of the final-state kinematics. In anticipation of improved LHC measurements based on the full Run II dataset, we present a study for single- and double-differential cross sections within the fiducial volume as defined in prior ATLAS analyses. Higher-order corrections are found to have a sizeable impact on both normalisation and shape of differential cross sections.

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arXiv2019

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

We present accurate QCD predictions for the transverse momentum pT spectrum of electroweak gauge bosons at the LHC for 13 TeV collisions, based on a consistent combination of a NNLO calculation at large pT and N3LL resummation in the small pT 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 pT 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.

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arXiv2019

Triple Differential Dijet Cross Section at the LHC

The measurement of the triple-differential dijet production cross section as a function of the average transverse momentum $p_{T,\textrm{avg}}$, half the rapidity separation $y^{*}$, and the boost $y_{b}$ of the two leading jets in the event enables a kinematical scan of the underlying parton momentum distributions. We compute for the first time the second-order perturbative QCD corrections to this triple-differential dijet cross section, at leading color in all partonic channels, thereby enabling precision studies with LHC dijet data. A detailed comparison with experimental CMS 8 TeV data is performed, demonstrating how the shape of this differential cross section probes the parton densities in different kinematical ranges.

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arXiv2019

Jet cross sections at the LHC and the quest for higher precision

We perform a phenomenological study of $Z$ plus jet, Higgs plus jet and di-jet production at the Large Hadron Collider. We investigate in particular the dependence of the leading jet cross section on the jet radius as a function of the jet transverse momentum. Theoretical predictions are obtained using perturbative QCD calculations at the next-to and next-to-next-to-leading order, using a range of renormalization and factorization scales. The fixed order predictions are compared to results obtained from matching next-to-leading order calculations to parton showers. A study of the scale dependence as a function of the jet radius is used to provide a better estimate of the scale uncertainty for small jet sizes. The non-perturbative corrections as a function of jet radius are estimated from different generators.

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arXiv2019

Higgs boson production at the LHC using the $q_T$ subtraction formalism at N$^3$LO QCD

We consider higher-order QCD corrections to Higgs boson production through gluon-gluon fusion in the large top quark mass limit in hadron collisions. We extend the transverse-momentum ($q_T$) subtraction method to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) and combine it with the NNLO Higgs-plus-jet calculation to numerically compute differential infrared-safe observables at N$^3$LO for Higgs boson production in gluon fusion. To cancel the infrared divergences, we exploit the universal behaviour of the associated $q_T$ distributions in the small-$q_T$ region. We document all the necessary ingredients of the transverse-momentum subtraction method up to N$^3$LO. The missing third order collinear functions, which contribute only at $q_T$ =0, are approximated using a prescription which uses the known result for the total Higgs boson cross section at this order. As a first application of the third-order $q_T$ subtraction method, we present the N$^3$LO rapidity distribution of the Higgs boson at the LHC.

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arXiv2018

PHOTON-2017 conference proceedings

This document collects the proceedings of the PHOTON 2017 conference ("International Conference on the Structure and the Interactions of the Photon", including the 22th "International Workshop on Photon-Photon Collisions", and the "International Workshop on High Energy Photon Colliders") held at CERN (Geneva) in May 2017. The latest experimental and theoretical developments on the topics of the PHOTON conference series are covered: (i) $γ\,γ$ processes in e$^+$e$^-$, proton-proton (pp) and nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions at current and future colliders, (ii) $γ$-hadron interactions in e$^\pm$p, pp, and AA collisions, (iii) final-state photon production (including Standard Model studies and searches beyond it) in pp and AA collisions, and (iv) high-energy $γ$-ray astrophysics. These proceedings are dedicated to the memory of Maria Krawczyk.

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arXiv2018

Precise QCD Description of the Higgs Boson Transverse Momentum Spectrum

The transverse momentum ($p_T$) distribution of Higgs bosons at hadron colliders enables a detailed probe of its production dynamics and is a key ingredient to precision studies of Higgs boson properties, but receives very large QCD corrections. We obtain a precision prediction for the $p_T$ spectrum by matching second-order (NNLO) QCD corrections at large $p_T$ with resummation of third-order logarithmic (N$^3$LL) corrections at small $p_T$. We achieve significantly improved results for $p_T< 35\,{\rm GeV}$ with perturbative uncertainties $\lesssim \pm 6\%$, and thus a convergent perturbative series for all values of $p_T$.

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arXiv2018

Infrared sensitivity of single jet inclusive production at hadron colliders

Jet production at hadron colliders is a benchmark process to probe the dynamics of the strong interaction and the structure of the colliding hadrons. One of the most basic jet production observables is the single jet inclusive cross section, which is obtained by summing all jets that are observed in an event. Our recent computation of next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD contributions to single jet inclusive observables uncovered large corrections in certain kinematical regions, which also resulted in a sizeable ambiguity on the appropriate choice of renormalization and factorization scales. We now perform a detailed investigation of the infrared sensitivity of the different ingredients to the single jet inclusive cross section. We show that the contribution from the second jet, ordered in transverse momentum $p_{T}$, in the event is particularly sensitive to higher order effects due to implicit restrictions on its kinematics. By investigating the second-jet transverse momentum distribution, we identify large-scale cancellations between different kinematical event configurations, which are aggravated by certain types of scale choice. Taking perturbative convergence and stability as selection criteria enables us to single out the total partonic transverse energy $\hat{H}_{T}$ and twice the individual jet transverse momentum $2\,p_{T}$ (with which $\hat{H}_{T}$ coincides in Born kinematics) as the most appropriate scales in the perturbative description of single jet inclusive production.

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