Production of electroweak gauge bosons in off-shell gluon-gluon fusion

TL;DR

This paper investigates electroweak gauge boson production at high energies using the kt-factorization QCD approach, emphasizing the significance of quark contributions and comparing theoretical predictions with Tevatron data.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calculation of electroweak boson production including valence quark effects within the kt-factorization framework, highlighting their importance at collider energies.

Findings

Quark contributions are crucial for accurate predictions.

Theoretical results agree with Tevatron experimental data.

Quark effects remain significant at LHC energies.

Abstract

We study the production of electroweak gauge bosons at high energies in the framework of kt-factorization QCD approach. Contributions from the valence quarks are calculated using the quark-gluon interaction and quark-antiquark annihilation QCD subprocesses. The total and differential cross sections (as a function of the transverse momentum and rapidity) are presented and the ratio of cross sections for W and Z boson production is investigated. The conservative error analysis is performed. In the numerical calculations two different sets of unintegrated gluon distributions in the proton are used: the one obtained from Ciafaloni-Catani-Fiorani-Marchesini evolution equation and the other from Kimber-Martin-Ryskin prescription. Theoretical results are compared with experimental data taken by the D0 and CDF collaborations at the Tevatron. We demonstrate the importance of the quark component in parton evolution in description of the experimental data. This component is very significant also at the LHC energies.