Third order QCD predictions for fiducial W-boson production
John M. Campbell, Tobias Neumann
Abstract
A bstract Measurements of W -boson production at the LHC have reached percent-level precision and impose challenging demands on theoretical predictions. Such predictions directly limit the precision of measurements of fundamental quantities such as the W -boson mass and the weak mixing angle. A dominant source of uncertainty in predictions is from higher-order QCD effects. We present a calculation of W -boson production at the level of $$ {\alpha}_s^3 $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>α</mml:mi> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> at fixed order and including transverse-momentum resummation. We further show predictions for a direct comparison with low-pileup ATLAS transverse-momentum and fiducial cross-section measurements at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msqrt> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msqrt> </mml:math> = 5 . 02 TeV. We discuss in detail the impact of modern PDFs. Our calculation including the matching to W +jet production at NNLO will be publicly available the upcoming CuTe-MCFM release and allows for theory-data comparison at the state-of-the-art level.