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Michał Czakon

Publications and source records attributed to Michał Czakon.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Solution of Canonical Differential Equations for Integrals on Arbitrary Geometries

A highly successful approach to computing multi-loop scattering amplitudes is to reduce the Feynman integrals that arise to a smaller set of master integrals using integration-by-parts identities. These dimensionally-regulated master integrals can often be determined by solving a system of first-order partial differential equations with respect to masses and external invariants. The application of this method to large classes of problems became much more streamlined thanks to the introduction of $ε$-factorized canonical forms. There is increasing evidence that a canonical form can always be achieved, although the required transformation may involve transcendental functions related to the periods of geometrical objects such as elliptic curves or Calabi-Yau manifolds. Until now, obtaining numerical values for the master integrals in such cases has been difficult in practice, also due to the lack of closed-form expressions for the transcendental functions involved. We show that this obstruction is only apparent. Since the original master integrals satisfy linear differential equations with rational coefficients, any functions appearing in the transformation to a canonical basis satisfy, by construction, rational differential equations as well. By solving these auxiliary equations, the numerical evaluation of the canonical system reduces to solving an enlarged rational system. We implement this strategy in a C\texttt{++} package and apply it to the two-loop master integrals that enter di-jet and $γ$+jet hadro-production via a heavy-quark loop.

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Subleading Effects in Soft-Gluon Emission at One-Loop in Massless QCD

We elucidate the structure of the next-to-leading-power soft-gluon expansion of arbitrary one-loop massless-QCD amplitudes. The expansion is given in terms of universal colour-, spin- and flavour-dependent operators acting on process-dependent gauge-invariant amplitudes. The result is proven using the method of expansion-by-regions and tested numerically on non-trivial processes with up to six partons. In principle, collinear-region contributions are expressed in terms of convolutions of universal jet operators and process-dependent amplitudes with two collinear partons. However, we evaluate these convolutions exactly for arbitrary processes. This is achieved by deriving an expression for the next-to-leading power expansion of tree-level amplitudes in the double-collinear limit, which is a novel result as well. Compared to previous studies, our analysis, besides being more general, yields simpler formulae that avoid derivatives of process-dependent amplitudes in the collinear limit.

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Double virtual QCD corrections to $t\bar{t}+$jet production at the LHC

We present a leading colour computation of the double virtual contributions to top-quark pair production in association with a jet at a hadron collider at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The finite remainders of the two-loop amplitudes, after subtraction of infrared and ultraviolet divergences, are extracted analytically from evaluations over finite fields by using a (potentially) overcomplete basis of special functions defined through their differential equations. We construct the colour- and spin-summed interference with the tree-level amplitudes and present a \texttt{C++} library suitable for immediate use in phenomenological studies. We present new techniques for the evaluation of the special functions through direct numerical integration of differential equations which perform well across the full physical phase space.

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Subleading Effects in Soft-Gluon Emission at One-Loop in Massive QCD

We provide the last missing ingredient necessary to approximate one-loop amplitudes in QCD with massive quarks in the limit of vanishing energy of a single gluon up to terms suppressed by this energy. Our main result is a soft operator acting in color and spin space that manipulates the momenta of the hard partons while keeping them on-shell and respecting momentum conservation. Additionally, we provide a complete expression for the subleading term of the expansion of an arbitrary tree-level amplitude in the limit where the momenta of a massless quark and a massless anti-quark of the same flavor become collinear. This limit is necessary to obtain the one-loop soft approximation whenever the process involves such a quark-anti-quark pair. Interestingly, the result involves a high-energy limit.

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How much color do we really need? Two-loop subleading-color effects in photon and jet physics

In recent years, the complete set of cross sections for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) processes ending with three resolved final states consisting of either photons or jets has been evaluated at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD and leading order in QED. Results for three photons or three jets have only been obtained using the leading-color approximation of the virtual two-loop amplitudes. In the meantime, the required amplitudes have become available without recourse to the color expansion. In the present publication, we quantify the effects of the subleading-color contributions, and show that they do not exceed 2\% for most of the previously published results. The one exception is the ratio of three- to two-jet cross sections, where subleading-color effects can reach up to 5\%. Furthermore, we show that these conclusions hold for both popular infrared renormalization schemes, minimal subtraction and Catani's. The size of the effects is usually overshadowed by the size of the remaining uncertainty due to the truncation of the perturbation series. This is particularly important in the case of three-jet distributions that have already been used for the extraction of the strong-coupling constant at the very high energies available at the LHC.

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Open $B$-hadron production at hadron colliders in QCD at next-to-next-to-leading-order and next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy

We report on a calculation of open heavy-flavor production at hadron colliders which extends to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy the classic NLO-accurate formalism developed almost 30 years ago under the acronym FONLL. The approach retains the exact heavy-flavor mass dependence at low transverse momentum, $p_T$, and resums collinear logarithms through next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL) at high $p_T$. Provided are predictions for $B$-hadrons as well as $B$-decay products like $J/Ψ$ and muons. The main features of the NNLO+NNLL results are reduced scale dependence and moderate NNLO correction, consistent with perturbative convergence in a wide range of kinematic scales from few GeV up to asymptotically large values of $p_T$. The new calculation significantly improves the agreement with data for $B$-hadrons and muons. We uncover an intriguing discrepancy in $J/Ψ$ final states which may point to a lower value of the $B\to J/Ψ$ decay rate.

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Identified Hadron Production at Hadron Colliders in Next-to-Next-to-Leading-Order QCD

In this work we calculate for the first time the next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to identified hadron production at hadron colliders. The inclusion of the NNLO correction has an important impact on all observables considered in this work. Higher order corrections reduce scale uncertainty and in almost all cases are moderate. Overall, good perturbative convergence is observed across kinematics and observables. The uncertainty due to missing higher orders is relatively small and, in many cases, smaller than the experimental uncertainty. The largest source of theoretical uncertainty at present is from the knowledge of the non-perturbative parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions (FF), which dwarfs the scale uncertainty in most kinematic ranges. The inclusion of NNLO corrections demonstrates the precision studies potential of this class of observables. To fully realize this potential, however, a new generation of improved fragmentation functions may be needed. The results of the present work will enable global fits of FF with NNLO precision.

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Renormalization of the pseudoscalar operator at four loops in QCD

We present the renormalization constant of the pseudoscalar operator defined with a non-anticommuting $γ_5$ in dimensional regularization up to four-loop order in perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Furthermore, by virtue of renormalization-group invariance of the relation between the scalar and the pseudoscalar operator, we predict the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ factor of the renormalization constant for the latter at five-loop order in QCD.

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Quark Mass Effects in Higgs Production

We examine the effect of finite top- and bottom-quark masses on the Higgs production cross section in the gluon-gluon fusion channel. We employ both $\overline{\text{MS}}$ and on-shell renormalisation for the quark masses and provide a thorough comparison. Furthermore, we explore alternative treatments of quark masses, in particular in the four-flavour scheme, and investigate their impact on the cross section. Our work also presents novel predictions for differential cross sections in the Higgs rapidity. The results lead to a significant reduction of scale uncertainties, and our analysis enables us to offer well-grounded recommendations for future research in this area.

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Top-Bottom Interference Contribution to Fully-Inclusive Higgs Production

We evaluate the top-bottom interference contribution to the fully-inclusive Higgs production cross section at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. Although bottom-quark-mass effects are power-suppressed, the accuracy of state-of-the-art theory predictions makes an exact determination of this effect indispensable. The total effect of the interference at 13 TeV is $-1.99(1)^{+0.30}_{-0.15}$ pb, while the pure $\mathcal{O}(α_s^4)$ correction is 0.43 pb. With this result, we address one of the leading theory uncertainties of the cross section.

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A note on quark and gluon energy-momentum tensors

We discuss the constraints on quark and gluon energy-momentum tensors in QCD that follow from the requirement of Renormalisation-Group invariance of the traces of these operators. Our study covers the most general form of the latter traces, while the energy-momentum tensors themselves are only subjected to very mild constraints. We derive Renormalisation-Group equations for the two finite independent functions of the strong coupling constant and renormalisation scale of minimal subtraction which completely define the energy-momentum tensors. We demonstrate that previously proposed definitions of the renormalized quark and gluon energy-momentum tensors are special cases of our results assuming no explicit dependence on the renormalisation scale. Finally, we present $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$-renormalised quark and gluon energy-momentum tensors at four-loop order.

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HighTEA: High energy Theory Event Analyser

We introduce HighTEA, a new paradigm for deploying fully-differential next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) calculations for collider observables. In principle, any infrared safe observable can be computed and, with very few restrictions, the user has complete freedom in defining their calculation's setup. For example, one can compute generic n-dimensional distributions, can define kinematic variables and factorization/renormalization scales, and can modify the strong coupling and parton distributions. HighTEA operates on the principle of analyzing precomputed events. It has all the required hardware and software infrastructure such that users only need to request their calculation via the internet before receiving the results, typically within minutes, in the form of a histogram. No specialized knowledge or computing infrastructure is required to fully utilize HighTEA, which could be used by both experts in particle physics and the general public. The current focus is on all classes of LHC processes. Extensions beyond NNLO, or to $e^+e^-$ colliders, are natural next steps.

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NNLO B-fragmentation fits and their application to $t\bar t$ production and decay at the LHC

In this work we derive three sets of non-perturbative fragmentation functions, with uncertainties, for $B$-hadrons, $J/ψ$'s and muons resulting from semileptonic $B$ decays. All three sets are with next-to-next-to leading order accuracy and include next-to-next-to leading logarithmic soft gluon resummation. The novel feature of these new sets is that they are fully consistent with our formalism for next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) calculations for final states with identified $B$, $J/ψ$ or a $μ$. We employ the fragmentation functions derived in this work to make state of the art predictions for such final states in $t\bar t$ events at the LHC. A special emphasis is placed on observables sensitive to the top quark mass. The present work opens the door for many LHC applications, like, open $B$ production or $B$ production in association with bosons.

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A detailed investigation of W+c-jet at the LHC

State-of-the-art analyses of W+c-jet production at the LHC require precise predictions. In the present work, we study in detail the impact of off-diagonal CKM elements up to next-to-next-to leading order in QCD, the influence of flavored jet algorithms, and the size of electroweak corrections. In addition, we also investigate phenomenological aspects related to the exact definition of the process. We find that all these effects can be of the order of several per cent for both the fiducial cross section and differential distributions. They are, therefore, very relevant for the interpretation of current and upcoming measurements.

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Revisiting the double-soft asymptotics of one-loop amplitudes in massless QCD

We evaluate the one-loop soft current for the emission of two soft gluons or a soft quark-anti-quark pair in massless Quantum Chromodynamics. The results are exact in dimensional regularisation up to a single Feynman integral. Two terms of the Taylor series of the latter integral as a function of $ε\equiv (4-d)/2$ with $d$ the dimension of spacetime are available from a recent calculation of one-loop triple-collinear splitting functions. Our formulae are necessary for the construction of a subtraction scheme for the evaluation of next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order cross sections in massless QCD.

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The $\bar{\mathrm{MS}}$ renormalization constant of the singlet axial current operator at $\mathcal{O}(α_s^5)$ in QCD

We provide the $\bar{\mathrm{MS}}$ factor of the renormalization constant of the singlet axial-current operator in dimensional regularization at $\mathcal{O}(α_s^5)$ in perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The result is obtained from a formula derived using the Adler-Bell-Jackiw equation in terms of renormalized operators. The required input consists of the complete four-loop results for operator renormalization constants obtained by explicit diagrammatic computation in a previous publication.

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Complete collection of one-loop triple-collinear splitting operators for dimensionally-regulated QCD

We provide results for the one-loop triple-collinear color/spin-space splitting operators for the five possible processes, $q \to qq'\bar{q}'$, $q \to qq\bar{q}$, $q \to qgg$, $g \to gq\bar{q}$ and $g \to ggg$. The expressions are exact in dimensionally-regulated massless QCD up to a single integral, which we expand to second order in the dimensional-regularisation parameter. We also evaluate the related splitting functions. Our results are both sufficient and indispensable for the construction of subtraction and integrated-subtraction terms for triple-collinear singularities of one-loop double-real-emission cross-section contributions as part of a next-to-next-to-next-to leading order subtraction scheme.

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Renormalization of the axial current operator in dimensional regularization at four-loop in QCD

We provide the renormalization constants of the axial current operators, both singlet and non-singlet, in dimensional regularization up to four-loop order in QCD, determined using the off-shell Ward-Takahashi identity for an axial current with a non-anticommuting $γ_5$. A possible application of the result for the singlet axial current operator is the extraction of the non-decoupling mass logarithms in the axial quark form factors.

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