Studies of W boson plus jets production in p\bar{p} collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed measurement of W boson production with multiple jets in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV, comparing results to various theoretical models and QCD predictions.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive differential cross section measurements for W+jets at Tevatron energies, testing multiple QCD models against experimental data.

Findings

Good agreement with NLO QCD in some regions

Discrepancies observed in certain jet angular distributions

Data constrains theoretical models of W+jets production

Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of inclusive W(\to e\nu)+n-jet (n\geq 1,2,3,4) production in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV at the Tevatron collider using a 3.7 fb^{-1} dataset collected by the D0 detector. Differential cross sections are presented as a function of the jet rapidities (y), lepton transverse momentum (p_T) and pseudorapidity (\eta), the scalar sum of the transverse energies of the W boson and all jets (H_T), leading dijet p_T and invariant mass, dijet rapidity separations for a variety of jet pairings for p_T-ordered and angular-ordered jets, dijet opening angle, dijet azimuthal angular separations for p_T-ordered and angular-ordered jets, and W boson transverse momentum. The mean number of jets in an event containing a W boson is measured as a function of H_T, and as a function of the rapidity separations between the two highest-p_T jets and between the most widely separated jets in rapidity. Finally, the probability for third-jet emission in events containing a W boson and at least two jets is studied by measuring the fraction of events in the inclusive W+2-jet sample that contain a third jet over a p_T threshold. The analysis employs a regularized singular value decomposition technique to accurately correct for detector effects and for the presence of backgrounds. The corrected data are compared to particle level next-to-leading order perturbative QCD predictions, predictions from all-order resummation approaches, and a variety of leading-order and matrix-element plus parton-shower event generators. Regions of the phase space where there is agreement or disagreement with the data are discussed for the different models tested.