Measurement of the cross section for prompt isolated diphoton production using the full CDF Run II data sample

TL;DR

This paper measures the cross section for prompt isolated diphoton production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV using the full CDF Run II dataset, comparing results with advanced theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive measurement of diphoton production cross sections at Tevatron energies and compares them with multiple levels of theoretical calculations.

Findings

Next-to-next-to-leading order calculations match data well.

Higher-order contributions are crucial for accurate strong interaction modeling.

Results aid in Higgs boson measurements and new physics searches.

Abstract

This Letter reports a measurement of the cross section for producing pairs of central prompt isolated photons in proton-antiproton collisions at a total energy of 1.96 TeV using data corresponding to 9.5/fb integrated luminosity collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The measured differential cross section is compared to three calculations derived from the theory of strong interactions. These include a prediction based on a leading order matrix element calculation merged with parton shower, a next-to-leading order, and a next-to-next-to-leading order calculation. The first and last calculations reproduce most aspects of the data, thus showing the importance of higher-order contributions for understanding the theory of strong interaction and improving measurements of the Higgs boson and searches for new phenomena in diphoton final states.