QCD NLO predictions to $W$-pair production in association with a massive (anti)bottom-jet at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper calculates the next-to-leading order QCD predictions for W-boson pair production with a massive bottom jet at the LHC, providing more accurate cross sections crucial for background estimations in new physics searches.

Contribution

It presents the first NLO QCD calculations for W+W- plus a massive bottom jet, including total and differential cross sections with specific event selection schemes.

Findings

K factors are 1.66 (inclusive) and 1.21 (exclusive) for the two schemes.

Theoretical predictions are stabilized with a jet veto and including NLO contributions from additional b-quark production.

NLO corrections significantly improve the accuracy of background estimates for new physics searches.

Abstract

The $W$-pair production in association with a massive (anti)bottom jet is not only an important background to a number of interesting processes, such as the single top production associated with a W boson, but also a potential background to new physics searches. We present the calculations of the total and differential cross sections for the $W^+W^-+ b(\bar{b})$ jet productions at the LHC up to the QCD next-to-leading order (NLO). Our results by adopting the QCD NLO contribution collection scheme-I show that the K factors can be 1.66 and 1.21 with the inclusive and exclusive two-jet event selection schemes respectively, when we set $m_H=120 GeV$, $\mu=m_W+m_b/2$ and take the constraints of $p_{T,b(\bar{b})}>25 GeV$, $|y_{b(\bar{b})}|<2.5$ for $b(\bar{b})$ jet. We find that the stabilization of the theoretical prediction for the integrated cross section for the $pp \to W^+W^-b(\bar b)+X$ up to the QCD NLO requires a veto on a second isolated hard jet and the inclusion of the QCD NLO contribution from the $W^+W^-b\bar{b}(bb, \bar{b}\bar{b})$ production with the final two $b(\bar{b})$ quarks being merged as one jet.