arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D. Forde.
In this contribution we present recent progress in the computation of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections for the production of an electroweak vector boson in association with jets at hadron colliders. We focus on results obtained using the virtual matrix element library BLACKHAT in conjunction with SHERPA, focusing on results relevant to understanding the background to top production.
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.
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 H_T are provided for the initial LHC energy of \sqrt{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.
Recent computations of scattering amplitudes show that N=8 supergravity is surprisingly well behaved in the ultraviolet and may even be ultraviolet finite in perturbation theory. The novel cancellations necessary for ultraviolet finiteness first appear at one loop in the guise of the "no-triangle hypothesis". We study one-loop amplitudes in pure Einstein gravity and point out the existence of cancellations similar to those found previously in N=8 supergravity. These cancellations go beyond those found in the one-loop effective action. Using unitarity, this suggests that generic theories of quantum gravity based on the Einstein-Hilbert action may be better behaved in the ultraviolet at higher loops than suggested by naive power counting, though without additional (supersymmetric) cancellations they diverge. We comment on future studies that should be performed to support this proposal.
We present several results obtained using the BlackHat next-to-leading order QCD program library, in conjunction with SHERPA. In particular, we present distributions for vector boson plus 1,2,3-jet production at the Tevatron and at the asymptotic running energy of the Large Hadron Collider, including new Z+3-jet distributions. The Z+2-jet predictions for the second-jet P_T distribution are compared to CDF data. We present the jet-emission probability at NLO in W+2-jet events at the LHC, where the tagging jets are taken to be the ones furthest apart in pseudorapidity. We analyze further the large left-handed W polarization, identified in our previous study, for W bosons produced at high P_T at the LHC.
Using BlackHat in conjunction with SHERPA, we have computed next-to-leading order QCD predictions for a variety of distributions in Z,gamma*+1,2,3-jet production at the Tevatron, where the Z boson or off-shell photon decays into an electron-positron pair. We find good agreement between the NLO results for jet p_T distributions and measurements by CDF and D0. We also present jet-production ratios, or probabilities of finding one additional jet. As a function of vector-boson p_T, the ratios have distinctive features which we describe in terms of a simple model capturing leading logarithms and phase-space and parton-distribution-function suppression.
We review recent NLO QCD results for W,Z + 3-jet production at hadron colliders, computed using BlackHat and SHERPA. We also include some new results for Z + 3-jet production at 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_T distribution of the fourth jet, for a single subprocess with the maximum number of gluons.
We present next-to-leading order QCD predictions for a variety of distributions in W+3-jet production at both the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider. We include all subprocesses and incorporate the decay of the W boson into leptons. Our results are in excellent agreement with existing Tevatron data and provide the first quantitatively precise next-to-leading order predictions for the LHC. We include all terms in an expansion in the number of colors, confirming that the specific leading-color approximation used in our previous study is accurate to within three percent. The dependence of the cross section on renormalization and factorization scales is reduced significantly with respect to a leading-order calculation. We study different dynamical scale choices, and find that the total transverse energy is significantly better than choices used in previous phenomenological studies. We compute the one-loop matrix elements using on-shell methods, as numerically implemented in the BlackHat code. The remaining parts of the calculation, including generation of the real-emission contributions and integration over phase space, are handled by the SHERPA package.
In this contribution we present results from the NLO computation of the production of a $W$ boson in association with three jets in hadronic collisions. The results are obtained by combining two programs: {\tt BlackHat} for the virtual one-loop matrix elements and {\tt Sherpa} for the real-emission contributions. We present results for the Tevatron and the LHC, and address the issue of the choice of a common factorization and renormalization scale for this process.
In this talk, we report on a recent next-to-leading order QCD calculation of the production of a W boson in association with three jets at hadron colliders. The computation is performed by combining two programs, BlackHat for the computation of the virtual one-loop matrix elements and Sherpa for the real emission part.
We report on the first next-to-leading order QCD computation of W + 3-jet production in hadronic collisions including all partonic subprocesses. We compare the results with CDF data from the Tevatron, and find excellent agreement. The renormalization and factorization scale dependence is reduced substantially compared to leading-order calculations. The required one-loop matrix elements are computed using on-shell methods, implemented in a numerical program, BlackHat. We use the SHERPA package to generate the real-emission contributions and to integrate the various contributions over phase space. We use a leading-color (large-N_c) approximation for the virtual part, which we confirm in W + 1,2-jet production to be valid to within three percent. The present calculation demonstrates the utility of on-shell methods for computing next-to-leading-order corrections to processes important to physics analyses at the Large Hadron Collider.
In this talk, we present the first, numerically stable, results for the one-loop amplitudes needed for computing W,Z + 3 jet cross sections at the LHC to next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling. We implemented these processes in BlackHat, an automated program based on on-shell methods. These methods scale very well with increasing numbers of external partons, and are applicable to a wide variety of problems of phenomenological interest at the LHC.
We describe BlackHat, an automated C++ program for calculating one-loop amplitudes, and the techniques used in its construction. These include the unitarity method and on-shell recursion. The other ingredients are compact analytic formulae for tree amplitudes for four-dimensional helicity states. The program computes amplitudes numerically, using analytic formulae only for the tree amplitudes, the starting point for the recursion, and the loop integrals. We make use of recently developed on-shell methods for evaluating coefficients of loop integrals, in particular a discrete Fourier projection as a means of improving numerical stability. We illustrate the good numerical stability of this approach by computing six-, seven- and eight-gluon amplitudes in QCD and comparing against known analytic results.
We present the first results from BlackHat, an automated C++ program for calculating one-loop amplitudes. The program implements the unitarity method and on-shell recursion to construct amplitudes. As input to the calculation, it uses compact analytic formulae for tree amplitudes for four-dimensional helicity states. The program performs all related computations numerically. We make use of recently developed on-shell methods for evaluating coefficients of loop integrals, introducing a discrete Fourier projection as a means of improving efficiency and numerical stability. We illustrate the numerical stability of our approach by computing and analyzing six-, seven- and eight-gluon amplitudes in QCD and comparing against previously-obtained analytic results.