Resummation for W and Z production at large pT

TL;DR

This paper applies Soft-Collinear Effective Theory to perform threshold resummation for W and Z boson production at high transverse momentum, achieving improved theoretical precision and better agreement with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic resummation matched with fixed-order results for W/Z production at large pT, enhancing prediction accuracy.

Findings

Good agreement with Tevatron data

Reduced theoretical uncertainties

Predictions for high-pT spectra at LHC

Abstract

Soft-Collinear Effective theory is used to perform threshold resummation for W and Z production at large transverse momentum to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy including matching to next-to-leading fixed-order results. The results agree very well with data from the Tevatron, and predictions are made for the high-pT spectra at the LHC. While the higher-log terms are of moderate size, their inclusion leads to a substantial reduction of the perturbative uncertainty. With these improvements, the PDF uncertainties now dominate the error on the predicted cross section.