Two-Loop Virtual Corrections to Drell-Yan Production at order alpha_s alpha^3

TL;DR

This paper calculates the two-loop mixed QCD and QED virtual corrections to Drell-Yan production, enhancing the precision of theoretical predictions for lepton pair production at hadron colliders.

Contribution

It provides an analytical computation of mixed two-loop QCD x QED corrections to Drell-Yan, including detailed analysis of the amplitude's ultraviolet and infrared structure.

Findings

Derived explicit analytical expressions for two-loop corrections.

Analyzed the divergence structure and pole behavior of the amplitude.

Improved theoretical accuracy for Drell-Yan process predictions.

Abstract

The Drell-Yan mechanism for the production of lepton pairs is one of the most basic processes for physics studies at hadron colliders. It is therefore important to have accurate theoretical predictions. In this work we compute the two-loop virtual mixed QCD x QED corrections to Drell-Yan production. We evaluate the Feynman diagrams by decomposing the amplitudes into a set of known master integrals and their coefficients, which allows us to derive an analytical result. We also perform a detailed study of the ultraviolet and infrared structure of the two-loop amplitude and the corresponding poles in epsilon.