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G. Montagna

Publications and source records attributed to G. Montagna.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Implementation of electroweak corrections in the POWHEG BOX: single W production

We present a fully consistent implementation of electroweak and strong radiative corrections to single W hadroproduction in the POWHEG BOX framework, treating soft and collinear photon emissions on the same ground as coloured parton emissions. This framework can be easily extended to more complex electroweak processes. We describe how next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak corrections are combined with the NLO QCD calculation, and show how they are interfaced to QCD and QED shower Monte Carlo. The resulting tool fills a gap in the literature and allows to study comprehensively the interplay of QCD and electroweak effects to W production using a single computational framework. Numerical comparisons with the predictions of the electroweak generator HORACE, as well as with existing results on the combination of electroweak and QCD corrections to W production, are shown for the LHC energies, to validate the reliability and accuracy of the approach

hep-ph↗

NNLO massive corrections to Bhabha scattering and theoretical precision of BabaYaga@NLO

We provide an exact calculation of next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) massive corrections to Bhabha scattering in QED, relevant for precision luminosity monitoring at meson factories. Using realistic reference event selections, exact numerical results for leptonic and hadronic corrections are given and compared with the corresponding approximate predictions of the event generator BabaYaga@NLO. It is shown that the NNLO massive corrections are necessary for luminosity measurements with per mille precision. At the same time they are found to be well accounted for in the generator at an accuracy level below the one per mille. An update of the total theoretical precision of BabaYaga@NLO is presented and possible directions for a further error reduction are sketched.

hep-ph↗

NNLO leptonic and hadronic corrections to Bhabha scattering and luminosity monitoring at meson factories

Virtual fermionic N_f = 1 and N_f = 2 contributions to Bhabha scattering are combined with realistic real corrections at next-to-next-to-leading order in QED. The virtual corrections are determined by the package bha_nnlo_hf, and real corrections with the Monte Carlo generators Bhagen-1Ph, Helac-Phegas and Ekhara. Numerical results are discussed at the energies of and with realistic cuts used at the Phi factory DAFNE, at the B factories PEP-II and KEK, and at the charm/tau factory BEPC II. We compare these complete calculations with the approximate ones realized in the generator BabaYaga@NLO used at meson factories to evaluate their luminosities. For realistic reference event selections we find agreement for the NNLO leptonic and hadronic corrections within 0.07% or better and conclude that they are well accounted for in the generator by comparison with the present experimental accuracy.

hep-ph↗

Radiative Events as a Probe of Dark Forces at GeV-Scale e+ e- Colliders

High-luminosity e+ e- colliders at the GeV scale (flavor factories) have been recently recognized to be an ideal environment to search for a light weakly coupled vector boson U (dark photon) emerging in several new physics models able to interpret anomalous astrophysical observations in terms of dark matter. At flavor factories a particularly clean channel is the production of the U boson in association with a photon, followed by the decay of the U boson into lepton pairs. Beyond the approximations addressed in previous works, we revisit the reach potential of this channel by performing an exact lowest-order calculation of the signal and background processes. We also include the effect of initial and final state QED corrections neglected so far, to show how they affect the distributions of experimental interest. We present new results for the expected statistical significance to a dark photon signal at KLOE/KLOE-2 and future super-B factories. The calculation is implemented in a new release of the event generator BabaYaga@NLO, which is available for full event simulations and data analysis.

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Combination of electroweak and QCD corrections to single W production at the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN LHC

Precision studies of the production of a high-transverse momentum lepton in association with missing energy at hadron colliders require that electroweak and QCD higher-order contributions are simultaneously taken into account in theoretical predictions and data analysis. Here we present a detailed phenomenological study of the impact of electroweak and strong contributions, as well as of their combination, to all the observables relevant for the various facets of the $p\smartpap \to {\rm lepton} + X$ physics programme at hadron colliders, including luminosity monitoring and Parton Distribution Functions constraint, $W$ precision physics and search for new physics signals. We provide a theoretical recipe to carefully combine electroweak and strong corrections, that are mandatory in view of the challenging experimental accuracy already reached at the Fermilab Tevatron and aimed at the CERN LHC, and discuss the uncertainty inherent the combination. We conclude that the theoretical accuracy of our calculation can be conservatively estimated to be about 2% for standard event selections at the Tevatron and the LHC, and about 5% in the very high $W$ transverse mass/lepton transverse momentum tails. We also provide arguments for a more aggressive error estimate (about 1% and 3%, respectively) and conclude that in order to attain a one per cent accuracy: 1) exact mixed ${\cal O}(αα_s)$ corrections should be computed in addition to the already available NNLO QCD contributions and two-loop electroweak Sudakov logarithms; 2) QCD and electroweak corrections should be coherently included into a single event generator.

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Quest for precision in hadronic cross sections at low energy: Monte Carlo tools vs. experimental data

We present the achievements of the last years of the experimental and theoretical groups working on hadronic cross section measurements at the low energy e+e- colliders in Beijing, Frascati, Ithaca, Novosibirsk, Stanford and Tsukuba and on tau decays. We sketch the prospects in these fields for the years to come. We emphasise the status and the precision of the Monte Carlo generators used to analyse the hadronic cross section measurements obtained as well with energy scans as with radiative return, to determine luminosities and tau decays. The radiative corrections fully or approximately implemented in the various codes and the contribution of the vacuum polarisation are discussed.

hep-ph↗

Proceedings of the Workshop on Monte Carlo's, Physics and Simulations at the LHC PART II

These proceedings collect the presentations given at the first three meetings of the INFN "Workshop on Monte Carlo's, Physics and Simulations at the LHC", held at the Frascati National Laboratories in 2006. The first part of these proceedings contains pedagogical introductions to several basic topics of both theoretical and experimental high pT LHC physics. The second part collects more specialised presentations.

hep-ph↗

Proceedings of the Workshop on Monte Carlo's, Physics and Simulations at the LHC PART I

These proceedings collect the presentations given at the first three meetings of the INFN "Workshop on Monte Carlo's, Physics and Simulations at the LHC", held at the Frascati National Laboratories in 2006. The first part of these proceedings contains pedagogical introductions to several basic topics of both theoretical and experimental high pT LHC physics. The second part collects more specialised presentations.

hep-ph↗

Mini-review on Monte Carlo programs for Bhabha scattering

We review the status of Monte Carlo generators presently used for simulations of the large-angle Bhabha process at electron-positron colliders of moderately high energy (flavour factories), operating at centre-of-mass energies between about 1 GeV and 10 GeV. It is shown how the theoretical accuracy reached by present Bhabha programs for physics at flavour factories is at the level of 0.1% and, therefore, comparable with that reached about a decade ago for luminosity monitoring through small-angle Bhabha scattering at LEP.

hep-ph↗

Electroweak & QCD corrections to Drell Yan processes

The relevance of single-W and single-Z production processes at hadron colliders is well known: in the present paper the status of theoretical calculations of Drell-Yan processes is summarized and some results on the combination of electroweak and QCD corrections to a sample of observables of the process $p p \to W^\pm \to μ^\pm + X$ at the LHC are discussed. The phenomenological analysis shows that a high-precision knowledge of QCD and a careful combination of electroweak and strong contributions is mandatory in view of the anticipated LHC experimental accuracy. One of the authors (O.N.) dedicates these notes to Prof. S. Jadach, in honour of his 60th birthday and grateful for all that Prof. Jadach taught him during their fruitful collaboration.

hep-ph↗

Photon pair production at flavour factories with per mille accuracy

We present a high-precision QED calculation, with 0.1% theoretical accuracy, of two photon production in $e^+ e^-$ annihilation, as required by more and more accurate luminosity monitoring at flavour factories. The accuracy of the approach, which is based on the matching of exact next-to-leading order corrections with a QED Parton Shower algorithm, is demonstrated through a detailed analysis of the impact of the various sources of radiative corrections to the experimentally relevant observables. The calculation is implemented in the latest version of the event generator BabaYaga, available for precision simulations of photon pair production at $e^+ e^-$ colliders of moderately high energies.

hep-ph↗

A complete one-loop description of associated tW production at LHC and an estimate of possible genuine supersymmetric effects

We compute, in the MSSM framework, the sum of the one-loop electroweak and of the total QED radiation effects for the process $pp \to t W+X$, initiated by the parton process $bg\to tW$. Combining these terms with the existing NLO calculations of SM and SUSY QCD corrections, we analyze the overall one-loop supersymmetric effects on the partial rates of the process, obtained by integrating the differential cross section up to a final variable invariant mass. We conclude that, for some choices of the SUSY parameters and for relatively small final invariant masses, they could reach the relative ten percent level, possibly relevant for a dedicated experimental effort at LHC.

hep-ph↗

Precision electroweak calculation of the production of a high transverse-momentum lepton pair at hadron colliders

We present a detailed study of the production of a high transverse-momentum lepton pair at hadron colliders, which includes the exact O(alpha) electroweak corrections properly matched with leading logarithmic effects due to multiple photon emission, as required by the experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN LHC. Numerical results for the relevant observables of single Z-boson production at hadron colliders are presented. The impact of the radiative corrections is discussed in detail. The presence in the proton of a photon density is considered and the effects of the photon-induced partonic subprocesses are analyzed. The calculation has been implemented in the new version of the event generator HORACE, which is available for precision simulations of the neutral and charged current Drell-Yan processes.

hep-ph↗

A Comparative Study of Stochastic Volatility Models

The correlated stochastic volatility models constitute a natural extension of the Black and Scholes-Merton framework: here the volatility is not a constant, but a stochastic process correlated with the price log-return one. At present, several stochastic volatility models are discussed in the literature, differing in the dynamics attached to the volatility. The aim of the present work is to compare the most recent results about three popular models: the Vasicek, Heston and exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models. We analyzed for each of them the theoretical results known in the literature (volatility and return distribution, higher-order moments and different-time correlations) in order to test their predictive effectiveness on the outcomes of original numerical simulations, paying particular attention to their ability to reproduce empirical statistical properties of prices. The numerical results demonstrate that these models can be implemented maintaining all their features, especially in view of financial applications like market risk management or option pricing. In order to critically compare the models, we also perform an empirical analysis of financial time series from the Italian stock market, showing the exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model's ability to capture the stylized facts of volatility and log-return probability distributions.

q-fin.ST↗

Tevatron-for-LHC Report: Top and Electroweak Physics

The top quark and electroweak bosons (W and Z) represent the most massive fundamental particles yet discovered, and as such refer directly to the Standard Model's greatest remaining mystery: the mechanism by which all particles gained mass. This report summarizes the work done within the top-ew group of the Tevatron-for-LHC workshop. It represents a collection of both Tevatron results, and LHC predictions. The hope is that by considering and comparing both machines, the LHC program can be improved and aided by knowledge from the Tevatron, and that particle physics as a whole can be enriched. The report includes measurements of the top quark mass, searches for single top quark production, and physics of the electroweak bosons at hadron colliders.

hep-ph↗

Matching perturbative and Parton Shower corrections to Bhabha process at flavour factories

We report on a high-precision calculation of the Bhabha process in Quantum Electrodynamics, of interest for precise luminosity determination of electron-positron colliders involved in R measurements in the region of hadronic resonances. The calculation is based on the matching of exact next-to-leading order corrections with a Parton Shower algorithm. The accuracy of the approach is demonstrated in comparison with existing independent calculations and through a detailed analysis of the main components of theoretical uncertainty, including two-loop corrections, hadronic vacuum polarization and light pair contributions. The calculation is implemented in an improved version of the event generator BABAYAGA with a theoretical accuracy of the order of 0.1%. The generator is now available for high-precision simulations of the Bhabha process at flavour factories.

hep-ph↗

Electroweak corrections to the charged current Drell-Yan process

A concise review about the status of the calculation of radiative corrections to the Drell-Yan processes is presented. The effect of matching together exact electroweak O(alpha) corrections with higher-order QED effects due to multiple photon emission is displayed in some physical distributions in the charged current channel, which have obtained with the new version of the event generator HORACE.

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