A next-to-next-to-leading order calculation of soft-virtual cross sections

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive NNLO calculation of soft-virtual corrections for colorless final states in hadronic collisions, enhancing precision in theoretical predictions for processes like Drell-Yan and Higgs production.

Contribution

It provides the first all-orders in epsilon NNLO soft-virtual corrections and a universal hard coefficient for NNLL threshold resummation.

Findings

Soft-virtual approximation closely matches full NNLO results.

Universal expression for hard coefficient enables improved resummation.

Enhanced theoretical accuracy for key collider processes.

Abstract

We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) soft and virtual QCD corrections for the partonic cross section of colourless-final state processes in hadronic collisions. The results are valid to all orders in the dimensional regularization parameter $\ep$. The dependence of the results on a particular process is given through finite contributions to the one and two-loop amplitudes. To evaluate the accuracy of the soft-virtual approximation we compare it with the full NNLO result for Drell-Yan and Higgs boson production via gluon fusion. We also provide a universal expression for the hard coefficient needed to perform threshold resummation up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy.