arXiv subjects

Marco Bonvini

Publications and source records attributed to Marco Bonvini.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Parton distributions with small-x resummation: evidence for BFKL dynamics in HERA data

We present a determination of the parton distribution functions of the proton in which NLO and NNLO fixed-order calculations are supplemented by NLLx small-x resummation. Deep inelastic structure functions are computed consistently at NLO+NLLx or NNLO+NLLx, while for hadronic processes small-x resummation is included only in the PDF evolution, with kinematic cuts introduced to ensure the fitted data lie in a region where the fixed-order calculation of the hard cross-sections is reliable. In all other respects, the fits use the same methodology and are based on the same global dataset as the recent NNPDF3.1 analysis. We demonstrate that the inclusion of small-x resummation leads to a quantitative improvement in the perturbative description of the HERA inclusive and charm-production reduced cross-sections in the small x region. The impact of the resummation in our fits is greater at NNLO than at NLO, because fixed-order calculations have a perturbative instability at small x due to large logarithms that can be cured by resummation. We explore the phenomenological implications of PDF sets with small-x resummation for the longitudinal structure function $F_L$ at HERA, for parton luminosities and LHC benchmark cross-sections, for ultra-high energy neutrino-nucleus cross-sections, and for future high-energy lepton-proton colliders such as the LHeC.

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arXiv2017

Towards parton distribution functions with small-$x$ resummation: HELL 2.0

In global fits of parton distribution functions (PDFs) a large fraction of data points, mostly from the HERA collider, lies in a region of $x$ and $Q^2$ that is sensitive to small-$x$ logarithmic enhancements. Thus, the proper theoretical description of these data requires the inclusion of small-$x$ resummation. In this work we provide all the necessary ingredients to perform a PDF fit to deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) data which includes small-$x$ resummation in the evolution of PDFs and in the computation of DIS structure functions. To this purpose, not only we include the resummation of DIS massless structure functions, but we also consider the production of a massive final state (e.g. a charm quark), and the consistent resummation of mass collinear logarithms through the implementation of a variable flavour number scheme at small $x$. As a result, we perform the small-$x$ resummation of the matching conditions in PDF evolution at heavy flavour thresholds. The resummed results are accurate at next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy and matched, for the first time, to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). Furthermore, we improve on our previous work by considering a novel all-order treatment of running coupling contributions. These results, which are implemented in a new release of HELL, version 2.0, will allow to fit PDFs from DIS data at the highest possible theoretical accuracy, NNLO+NLL, thus providing an important step forward towards precision determination of PDFs and consequently precision phenomenology at the LHC and beyond.

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arXiv2017

Towards small-$x$ resummed parton distribution functions

We present preliminary results for fits of parton distribution functions (PDFs) which include the resummation of small-$x$ logarithms at NLLx accuracy, performed in the NNPDF framework. We observe an improvement in the description of DIS data at small values of Bjorken $x$ when resummation effects are included. The improvement is more marked when comparing NNLO+NLLx fits to NNLO ones, and is particularly noticeable for small-$x$ and small-$Q^2$ HERA inclusive structure functions. The main effect of the resummation is an enhancement of the gluon and singlet PDFs at small-$x$, which persists at high scales.

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arXiv2016

A Determination of the Charm Content of the Proton

We present an unbiased determination of the charm content of the proton, in which the charm parton distribution function (PDF) is parametrized on the same footing as the light quarks and the gluon in a global PDF analysis. This determination relies on the calculation of deep-inelastic structure functions in the FONLL scheme, generalized to account for massive charm-initiated contributions. In contrast to the usual situation in which the charm PDF is assumed to be generated perturbatively by pair radiation off gluons and light quarks, vanishing at a scale set by the value of the charm mass m_c, we find that the fitted charm PDF vanishes within uncertainties at a scale Q~1.5 GeV for all x<~0.1, independent of the value of m_c used in the coefficient functions. We also find some evidence that the charm PDF at large x>~0.1 and low scales does not vanish, but rather has an "intrinsic" component, very weakly scale dependent and almost independent of the value of m_c, carrying about 1% of the total momentum of the proton. The uncertainties in all other PDFs are only slightly increased by the inclusion of fitted charm, while the dependence of these PDFs on m_c is significantly reduced. When the EMC charm structure function dataset is included, it is well described by the fit, and PDF uncertainties in the fitted charm PDF are significantly reduced, though we verify that excluding the EMC data does not qualitatively modify any of our findings. The increased stability with respect to m_c persists at high scales and is the main implication of our results for LHC phenomenology. Fitting the charm PDF modifies the predictions for processes such as high p_T and large rapidity charm pair production and Z+c production, and thus we expect that future LHC data will further constrain the charm content of the proton.

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arXiv2016

Pseudo-scalar Higgs boson production at N$^3$LO$_{\text{A}}$+N$^3$LL$^\prime$

We consider the production of a pseudo-scalar particle $A$ at the LHC, and present accurate theoretical predictions for its inclusive cross section in gluon fusion. The prediction is based on combining fixed-order perturbation theory and all-order threshold resummation. At fixed order we include the exact next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) plus an approximate next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO$_{\rm A}$) which is based on the recent computation at this order for the scalar case. We then add threshold resummation at next-to-next-to-next-to leading logarithmic accuracy (N$^3$LL$^\prime$). Various forms of threshold resummation are considered, differing by the treatment of subleading terms, allowing a robust estimate of the theoretical uncertainties due to missing higher orders. With particular attention to pseudo-scalar masses of $200$ GeV and $750$ GeV, we also observe that perturbative convergence is much improved when resummation is included. Additionally, results obtained with threshold resummation in direct QCD are compared with analogous results as computed in soft-collinear effective theory, which turn out to be in good agreement. We provide precise predictions for pseudo-scalar inclusive cross section at $13$ TeV LHC for a wide range of masses. The results are available through updated versions of the public codes ggHiggs and TROLL.

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arXiv2016

Resummations in PDF fits

In this contribution I discuss recent and ongoing progress on the inclusion of resummation effects in the fit of parton distributions.

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arXiv2016

Matched predictions for the $b\bar{b}H$ cross section at the 13 TeV LHC

We present up-to-date matched predictions for the $b\bar{b}H$ inclusive cross section at the LHC at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. Using a previously developed method, our predictions consistently combine the complete NLO contributions that are present in the 4-flavor scheme calculation, including finite b-quark mass effects as well as top-loop induced $Y_b Y_t$ interference contributions, with the resummation of collinear logarithms of $m_b/m_H$ as present in the 5-flavor scheme calculation up to NNLO. We provide a detailed estimate of the perturbative uncertainties of the matched result by examining its dependence on the factorization and renormalization scales, the scale of the Yukawa coupling, and also the low b-quark matching scale in the PDFs. We motivate the use of a central renormalization scale of $m_H$/2, which is halfway between the values typically chosen in the 4-flavor and 5-flavor scheme calculations. We evaluate the parametric uncertainties due to the PDFs and the b-quark mass, and in particular discuss how to systematically disentangle the parametric $m_b$ dependence and the unphysical b-quark matching scale dependence. Our best prediction for the $b\bar{b} H$ production cross section in the Standard Model at 13 TeV and for $m_H$ = 125 GeV is $σ(b\bar b H) = 0.52 \,{\rm pb}\, [1 \pm 9.6\% {\rm (perturbative)}\,{}^{+2.9\%}_{-3.6\%} {\rm (parametric)}]$. We also provide predictions for a range of Higgs masses $m_H\in [50, 750]$ GeV. Our method to compute the matched prediction and to evaluate its uncertainty can be readily applied to other heavy-quark-initiated processes at the LHC.

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arXiv2016

Small-$x$ resummation from HELL

Small-$x$ logarithmic enhancements arising from high-energy gluon emissions affect both the evolution of collinearly-factorized parton densities and partonic coefficient functions. With the higher collider energy reached by the LHC, the prospect of a future high-energy collider, and the recent deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) results at small-$x$ from HERA, providing phenomenological tools for performing small-$x$ resummation has become of great relevance. In this paper we discuss a framework to perform small-$x$ resummation for both parton evolution and partonic coefficient functions and we describe its implementation in a computer code named High-Energy Large Logarithms (HELL). We present resummed and matched results for the DGLAP splitting functions and, as a proof of principle, for the massless structure functions in DIS.

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arXiv2016

On the Higgs cross section at N$^3$LO+N$^3$LL and its uncertainty

We consider the inclusive production of a Higgs boson in gluon-fusion and we study the impact of threshold resummation at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy (N$^3$LL) on the recently computed fixed-order prediction at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO). We propose a conservative, yet robust way of estimating the perturbative uncertainty from missing higher (fixed- or logarithmic-) orders. We compare our results with two other different methods of estimating the uncertainty from missing higher orders: the Cacciari-Houdeau Bayesian approach to theory errors, and the use of algorithms to accelerate the convergence of the perturbative series. We confirm that the best convergence happens at $μ_R=μ_F=m_H\,/\,2$, and we conclude that a reliable estimate of the uncertainty from missing higher orders on the Higgs cross section at 13 TeV is approximately $\pm4$%.

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arXiv2016

Intrinsic charm in a matched general-mass scheme

The FONLL general-mass variable-flavour number scheme provides a framework for the matching of a calculation in which a heavy quark is treated as a massless parton to one in which the mass dependence is retained throughout. We describe how the usual formulation of FONLL can be extended in such a way that the heavy quark parton distribution functions are freely parameterized at some initial scale, rather than being generated entirely perturbatively. We specifically consider the case of deep-inelastic scattering, in view of applications to PDF determination, and the possible impact of a fitted charm quark distribution on $F_2^c$ is assessed.

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arXiv2015

Resummation and Matching of $b$-quark Mass Effects in $b\bar{b}H$ Production

We use a systematic effective field theory setup to derive the $b\bar{b}H$ production cross section. Our result combines the merits of both fixed 4-flavor and 5-flavor schemes. It contains the full 4-flavor result, including the exact dependence on the $b$-quark mass, and improves it with a resummation of collinear logarithms of $m_b/m_H$. In the massless limit, it corresponds to a reorganized 5-flavor result. While we focus on $b\bar{b}H$ production, our method applies to generic heavy-quark initiated processes at hadron colliders. Our setup resembles the variable flavor number schemes known from heavy-flavor production in deep-inelastic scattering, but also differs in some key aspects. Most importantly, the effective $b$-quark PDF appears as part of the perturbative expansion of the final result where it effectively counts as an $O(α_s)$ object. The transition between the fixed-order (4-flavor) and resummation (5-flavor) regimes is governed by the low matching scale at which the $b$-quark is integrated out. Varying this scale provides a systematic way to assess the perturbative uncertainties associated with the resummation and matching procedure and reduces by going to higher orders. We discuss the practical implementation and present numerical results for the $b\bar{b}H$ production cross section at NLO+NLL. We also provide a comparison to the corresponding predictions in the fixed 4-flavor and 5-flavor results and the Santander matching prescription. Compared to the latter, we find a slightly reduced uncertainty and a larger central value, with its central value lying at the lower edge of our uncertainty band.

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arXiv2015

Charm in Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We show how to extend systematically the FONLL scheme for inclusion of heavy quark mass effects in DIS to account for the possible effects of an intrinsic charm component in the nucleon. We show that when there is no intrinsic charm, FONLL is equivalent to S-ACOT to any order in perturbation theory, while when an intrinsic charm component is included FONLL is identical to ACOT, again to all orders in perturbation theory. We discuss in detail the inclusion of top and bottom quarks to construct a variable flavour number scheme, and give explicit expressions for the construction of the structure functions $F^c_2$, $F^c_L$ and $F^c_3$ to NNLO.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Top Quark Pair Production beyond NNLO

We construct an approximate expression for the total cross section for the production of a heavy quark-antiquark pair in hadronic collisions at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) in $α_s$. We use a technique which exploits the analyticity of the Mellin space cross section, and the information on its singularity structure coming from large N (soft gluon, Sudakov) and small N (high energy, BFKL) all order resummations, previously introduced and used in the case of Higgs production. We validate our method by comparing to available exact results up to NNLO. We find that N$^3$LO corrections increase the predicted top pair cross section at the LHC by about 4% over the NNLO.

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arXiv2015

Parton distributions with threshold resummation

We construct a set of parton distribution functions (PDFs) in which fixed-order NLO and NNLO calculations are supplemented with soft-gluon (threshold) resummation up to NLL and NNLL accuracy respectively, suitable for use in conjunction with any QCD calculation in which threshold resummation is included at the level of partonic cross sections. These resummed PDF sets, based on the NNPDF3.0 analysis, are extracted from deep-inelastic scattering, Drell-Yan, and top quark pair production data, for which resummed calculations can be consistently used. We find that, close to threshold, the inclusion of resummed PDFs can partially compensate the enhancement in resummed matrix elements, leading to resummed hadronic cross-sections closer to the fixed-order calculation. On the other hand, far from threshold, resummed PDFs reduce to their fixed-order counterparts. Our results demonstrate the need for a consistent use of resummed PDFs in resummed calculations.

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arXiv2015

Cyber physical modeling of distributed resources for distribution system operations

Co-simulation platforms are necessary to study the interactions of complex systems integrated in future smart grids. The Virtual Grid Integration Laboratory (VirGIL) is a modular co-simulation platform designed to study interactions between demand response strategies, building comfort, communication networks, and power system operation. This paper presents the coupling of power systems, buildings, communications and control under a master algorithm. There are two objectives. First, to use a modular architecture for VirGIL, based on the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI), where several different modules can be added, exchanged, and tested. Second, to use a commercial power system simulation platform, familiar to power system operators, such as DIgSILENT Powerfactory. This will help reduce the barriers to the industry for adopting such platforms, investigate and subsequently deploy demand response strategies in their daily operation. VirGIL further introduces the integration of the Quantized State System (QSS) methods for simulation in this co-simulation platform. Results on how these systems interact using a real network and consumption data are also presented.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2015

The three loop soft function for N$^3$LL$^\prime$ gluon fusion Higgs production in SCET

We derive the three loop soft function for inclusive Higgs production in gluon fusion, and use it to perform the resummation of the Higgs cross section at N$^3$LL$^\prime$ in SCET. We improve the accuracy of the resummation by including contributions of collinear origin. We include finite top, bottom and charm mass effect where available. These results are available through the public code ResHiggs.

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arXiv2015

Resummation prescriptions and ambiguities in SCET vs. direct QCD: Higgs production as a case study

We perform a comparison of soft-gluon resummation in SCET vs. direct QCD (dQCD), using Higgs boson production in gluon fusion as a case study, with the goal of tracing the quantitative impact of each source of difference between the two approaches. We show that saddle-point methods enable a direct quantitative comparison despite the fact that the scale which is resummed in the two approaches is not the same. As a byproduct, we put in one-to-one analytic correspondence various features of either approach: specifically, we show how the SCET method for treating the Landau pole can be implemented in dQCD, and how the resummation of the optimal partonic scale of dQCD can be implemented in SCET. We conclude that the main quantitative difference comes from power-suppressed subleading contributions, which could in fact be freely tuned in either approach, and not really characteristic of either. This conclusion holds for Higgs production in gluon fusion, but it is in fact generic for processes with similar kinematics. For Higgs production, everything else being equal, SCET resummation at NNLL in the Becher-Neubert implementation leads to essentially no enhancement of the NNLO cross-section, unlike dQCD in the standard implementation of Catani et al..

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Resummed Higgs cross section at N$^3$LL

We present accurate predictions for the inclusive production of a Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions, via gluon-gluon fusion. Our calculation includes next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections in perturbative QCD, as well as the resummation of threshold-enhanced contributions to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N$^3$LL) accuracy, with the inclusion of the recently-determined three-loop constant coefficient (sometimes referred to as N$^3$LL' accuracy). Our result correctly accounts for finite top, bottom and charm masses at leading order (LO) and next-to-leading order (NLO), and includes top mass dependence at NNLO. At the resummed level the dependence on top, bottom and charm mass is accounted for at NLL, while only the top mass at NNLL. The all-order calculation is improved by a suitable choice of the soft terms, dictated by analyticity conditions and by the inclusion of subleading corrections of collinear origin, which improve the accuracy of the resummation away from the threshold region. We present results for different collider energies and we study perturbative uncertainties by varying renormalization and factorization scales. We find that, at current LHC energies, the resummation corrects the NNLO result by as much as 20 % at $μ_R=μ_F=m_H$, while the correction is much smaller, 5.5 %, at $μ_R=μ_F=m_H /\,2$. While the central value of NNLO+N$^3$LL result depends very mildly on the scale choice, we argue that a more reliable estimate of the theoretical uncertainty is found if the perturbative scales are canonically varied about $m_H$.

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