The real radiation antenna function for $S \to Q {\bar Q} q {\bar q}$ at NNLO QCD

TL;DR

This paper derives the real radiation antenna function for a specific NNLO QCD process involving massive and massless quarks, enabling more precise calculations of heavy-quark production in high-energy physics.

Contribution

It introduces the first determination of the real radiation antenna function for $S o Q ar{Q} q ar{q}$ at NNLO with massive quarks, including its integrated form in harmonic polylogarithms.

Findings

Computed the integrated antenna function in harmonic polylogarithms.

Validated the antenna function by calculating heavy-quark pair production cross section.

Enhanced the antenna subtraction formalism for massive quarks at NNLO.

Abstract

As a first step towards the application of the antenna subtraction formalism to NNLO QCD reactions with massive quarks, we determine the real radiation antenna function and its integrated counterpart for reactions of the type $S \to Q{\bar Q} q {\bar q}$, where $S$ denotes an uncolored initial state and $Q$, $q$ a massive and massless quark, respectively. We compute the corresponding integrated antenna function in terms of harmonic polylogarithms. As an application and check of our results we calculate the contribution proportional to $\alpha_s^2 e^2_Q N_f$ to the inclusive heavy-quark pair production cross ection in $e^+e^-$ annihilation.