Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to electroweak Zjj production in the POWHEGBOX

TL;DR

This paper implements NLO QCD corrections for electroweak Z-boson production with two jets in the POWHEG framework, enabling better simulation of collider events and background suppression techniques.

Contribution

It provides the first implementation of electroweak Zjj production at NLO in POWHEG, including leptonic decays and full matrix element contributions.

Findings

Parton-shower effects are small for most jet observables.

Effects are more significant in distributions used for central-jet-veto.

Results aid in background suppression for vector-boson fusion studies.

Abstract

We present an implementation of electroweak Z-boson production in association with two jets at hadron colliders in the POWHEG framework, a method that allows the interfacing of NLO-QCD calculations with parton-shower Monte Carlo programs. We focus on the leptonic decays of the weak gauge boson, and take photonic and non-resonant contributions to the matrix elements fully into account. We provide results for observables of particular importance for the suppression of QCD backgrounds to vector-boson fusion processes by means of central-jet-veto techniques. While parton-shower effects are small for most observables associated with the two hardest jets, they can be more pronounced for distributions that are employed in central-jet-veto studies.