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Michal Czakon

Publications and source records attributed to Michal Czakon.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2013

Further exploration of top pair hadroproduction at NNLO

Top quark pair production is one of the cornerstones of the physics program at hadron colliders. In this contribution, we further explore the phenomenological implications of the recent NNLO calculation of the total inclusive cross-section. We provide a comparison of the scale dependence of the top pair hadroproduction cross section at different perturbative orders and study its perturbative convergence (with and without soft-gluon resummation). We also sketch how the NNLO top quark cross-section could be used to improve searches of physics beyond the Standard Model.

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arXiv2013

Top++: a program for the calculation of the top-pair cross-section at hadron colliders

We present the program Top++ for the numerical evaluation of the total inclusive cross-section for producing top quark pairs at hadron colliders. The program calculates the cross-section in a) fixed order approach with exact next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) accuracy and b) by including soft-gluon resummation for the hadronic cross-section in Mellin space with full next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy. The program offers the user significant flexibility through the large number (29) of available options. Top++ is written in C++. It has a very simple to use interface that is intuitive and directly reflects the physics. The running of the program requires no programing experience from the user.

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arXiv2013

The total top quark pair production cross-section at hadron colliders through O(alpha_S^4)

We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD correction to the total cross-section for the reaction gg \to t\bar t + X. Together with the partonic channels we computed previously, the result derived in this letter completes the set of NNLO QCD corrections to the total top pair production cross-section at hadron colliders. Supplementing the fixed order results with soft-gluon resummation with next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy we estimate that the theoretical uncertainty of this observable due to unknown higher order corrections is about 3% at the LHC and 2.2% at the Tevatron. We observe a good agreement between the Standard Model predictions and the available experimental measurements. The very high theoretical precision of this observable allows a new level of scrutiny in parton distribution functions and new physics searches.

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arXiv2012

NNLO corrections to top pair production at hadron colliders: the quark-gluon reaction

We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD correction to the total inclusive top pair production cross-section in the reaction qg \to t\bar t + X. We find moderate O(1%) correction to central values at both Tevatron and LHC. The scale variation of the cross-section remains unchanged at the Tevatron and is significantly reduced at the LHC. We find that recently introduced approximation based on the high-energy limit of the top pair cross-section significantly deviates from the exact result. The results derived in the present work are included in version 1.4 of the program Top++. Work towards computing the reaction gg\to t\bar t+X is ongoing.

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arXiv2012

Progress in top-pair production at hadron colliders

We review recently derived NNLO QCD results for top-pair production at hadron colliders. We compare the size of the NNLO corrections in $q\bar q\to t\bar t+X$ with the LO and NLO ones, and address the question of convergence of perturbative series. We compare the NLO and NNLO K-factors for the Tevatron.

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arXiv2012

NNLO corrections to top-pair production at hadron colliders: the all-fermionic scattering channels

This is a second paper in our ongoing calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD correction to the total inclusive top-pair production cross-section at hadron colliders. In this paper we calculate the reaction $q\bar q \to t\bar t + q\bar q$ which was not considered in our previous work on $q\bar q \to t\bar t +X$ due to its phenomenologically negligible size. We also calculate all remaining fermion-pair-initiated partonic channels $qq', q\bar q'$ and $qq$ that contribute to top-pair production starting from NNLO. The contributions of these reactions to the total cross-section for top-pair production at the Tevatron and LHC are small, at the permil level. The most interesting feature of these reactions is their characteristic logarithmic rise in the high energy limit. We compute the constant term in the leading power behavior in this limit, and achieve precision that is an order of magnitude better than the precision of a recent theoretical prediction for this constant. All four partonic reactions computed in this paper are included in our numerical program Top++. The calculation of the NNLO corrections to the two remaining partonic reactions, $qg\to t\bar t+X$ and $gg\to t\bar t+X$, is ongoing.

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arXiv2012

Percent level precision physics at the Tevatron: first genuine NNLO QCD corrections to q qbar -> t tbar + X

We compute the Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the partonic reaction that dominates top-pair production at the Tevatron. This is the first ever NNLO calculation of an observable with more than two colored partons, and/or massive fermions, at hadron colliders. Augmenting our fixed order calculation with soft-gluon resummation through Next-to-Next-to-Leading Logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy, we observe that the predicted total inclusive cross-section exhibits a very small perturbative uncertainty, estimated at +-2.7%. We expect that once all sub-dominant partonic reactions are accounted for, and work in this direction is ongoing, the perturbative theoretical uncertainty for this observable could drop below +-2%. Our calculation demonstrates the power of our computational approach and proves it can be successfully applied to all processes at hadron colliders for which high-precision analyses are needed.

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arXiv2012

Top-pair production at hadron colliders with next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic soft-gluon resummation

Incorporating all recent theoretical advances, we resum soft-gluon corrections to the total $t\bar t$ cross-section at hadron colliders at the next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) order. We perform the resummation in the well established framework of Mellin $N$-space resummation. We exhaustively study the sources of systematic uncertainty like renormalization and factorization scale variation, power suppressed effects and missing two- and higher-loop corrections. The inclusion of soft-gluon resummation at NNLL brings only a minor decrease in the perturbative uncertainty with respect to the NLL approximation, and a small shift in the central value, consistent with the quoted uncertainties. These numerical predictions agree with the currently available measurements from the Tevatron and LHC and have uncertainty of similar size. We conclude that significant improvements in the $t\bar t$ cross-sections can potentially be expected only upon inclusion of the complete NNLO corrections.

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arXiv2011

The singular behavior of one-loop massive QCD amplitudes with one external soft gluon

We calculate the one-loop correction to the soft-gluon current with massive fermions. This current is process independent and controls the singular behavior of one-loop massive QCD amplitudes in the limit when one external gluon becomes soft. The result derived in this work is the last missing process-independent ingredient needed for numerical evaluation of observables with massive fermions at hadron colliders at the next-to-next-to-leading order.

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arXiv2011

Complete off-shell effects in top quark pair hadroproduction with leptonic decay at next-to-leading order

Results for next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the pp(p\bar{p}) -> t \bar{t} -> W^+W^- b\bar{b} -> e^{+} ν_{e} μ^{-} \barν_μ b \bar{b} +X processes with complete off-shell effects are presented for the first time. Double-, single- and non-resonant top contributions of the order {\cal{O}}(α_{s}^3 α^4) are consistently taken into account, which requires the introduction of a complex-mass scheme for unstable top quarks. Moreover, the intermediate W bosons are treated off-shell. Comparison to the narrow width approximation for top quarks, where non-factorizable corrections are not accounted for is performed. Besides the total cross section and its scale dependence, several differential distributions at the TeVatron run II and the LHC are given. In case of the TeVatron the forward-backward asymmetry of the top is recalculated afresh. With inclusive selection cuts, the forward-backward asymmetry amounts to A^{t}_{FB} = 0.051 +/- 0.0013. Furthermore, the corrections with respect to leading order are positive and of the order 2.3% for the TeVatron and 47% for the LHC. A study of the scale dependence of our NLO predictions indicates that the residual theoretical uncertainty due to higher order corrections is 8% for the TeVatron and 9% for the LHC.

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arXiv2008

Virtual Hadronic and Heavy-Fermion O(alpha^2) Corrections to Bhabha Scattering

Effects of vacuum polarization by hadronic and heavy-fermion insertions were the last unknown two-loop QED corrections to high-energy Bhabha scattering and have been first announced in \cite{Actis:2007fs}. Here we describe the corrections in detail and explore their numerical influence. The hadronic contributions to the virtual O(alpha^2) QED corrections to the Bhabha-scattering cross-section are evaluated using dispersion relations and computing the convolution of hadronic data with perturbatively calculated kernel functions. The technique of dispersion integrals is also employed to derive the virtual O(alpha^2) corrections generated by muon-, tau- and top-quark loops in the small electron-mass limit for arbitrary values of the internal-fermion masses. At a meson factory with 1 GeV center-of-mass energy the complete effect of hadronic and heavy-fermion corrections amounts to less than 0.5 per mille and reaches, at 10 GeV, up to about 2 per mille. At the Z resonance it amounts to 2.3 per mille at 3 degrees; overall, hadronic corrections are less than 4 per mille. For ILC energies (500 GeV or above), the combined effect of hadrons and heavy-fermions becomes 6 per mille at 3 degrees; hadrons contribute less than 20 per mille in the whole angular region.

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arXiv2008

Virtual Hadronic and Leptonic Contributions to Bhabha Scattering

Using dispersion relations, we derive the complete virtual QED contributions to Bhabha scattering due to vacuum polarization effects in photon propagation. We apply our result to hadronic corrections and to heavy lepton and top quark loop insertions. We give the first complete estimate of their net numerical effects for both small and large angle scattering at typical beam energies of meson factories, LEP, and the ILC. The effects turn out to be smaller, in most cases, than those corresponding to electron loop insertions, but stay, with amounts of typically one per mille, of relevance for precision experiments. Hadronic corrections themselves are typically about 2-3 times larger than those of intermediate muon pairs (the largest heavy leptonic terms).

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arXiv2007

Planar two-loop master integrals for massive Bhabha scattering: N_f=1 and N_f=2

Recent developments in the computation of two-loop master integrals for massive Bhabha scattering are briefly reviewed. We apply a method based on expansions of exact Mellin-Barnes representations and evaluate all planar four-point master integrals in the approximation of small electron mass at fixed scattering angle for the one-flavor case. The same technique is employed to derive and evaluate also all two-loop masters generated by additional fermion flavors. The approximation is sufficient for the determination of QED two-loop corrections for Bhabha scattering in the kinematics planned to be used for the luminosity determination at the ILC.

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arXiv2006

Four-Loop Anomalous Dimensions for Radiative Flavour-Changing Decays

We evaluate the complete four-loop anomalous dimension matrix that is necessary for determining the effective flavour-changing neutral current couplings qbar-q'-gamma and qbar-q'-g at the next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The resulting O(alpha_s^2(mu_b)) correction to the B -> X_s gamma branching ratio amounts to around -2.9% for mu_b = 5 GeV, and -4.4% for mu_b = 2.5 GeV

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