Threshold Resummation for Top-Pair Hadroproduction to Next-to-Next-to-Leading Log

TL;DR

This paper develops a precise theoretical calculation for the total cross section of top-quark pair production in hadronic collisions, incorporating advanced threshold resummation techniques up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithm accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel derivation of the threshold-resummed cross section for heavy quark production at NNLL accuracy, utilizing recent soft anomalous dimension matrix results.

Findings

Reproduces all poles of two-loop qar{q} -> tar{t} amplitudes.

Establishes the relation between fixed kinematic and inclusive resummations.

Validates the resummation accuracy through pole matching.

Abstract

We derive the threshold-resummed total cross section for heavy quark production in hadronic collisions accurate to next-to-next-to-leading logarithm, employing recent advances on soft anomalous dimension matrices for massive pair production in the relevant kinematic limit. We also derive the relation between heavy quark threshold resummations for fixed pair kinematics and the inclusive cross section. As a check of our results, we have verified that they reproduce all poles of the color-averaged q\bar{q} -> t\bar{t} amplitudes at two loops, noting that the latter are insensitive to the color-antisymmetric terms of the soft anomalous dimension.