The resummation of the low-phistar domain of Z production

TL;DR

This paper develops an NNLL resummation method for the phi* observable in Z boson production, improving theoretical predictions and comparing them with collider data from Tevatron and LHC.

Contribution

It introduces a novel NNLL resummation calculation for the phi* observable, addressing soft-collinear gluon effects in Z production.

Findings

Resummed predictions agree well with experimental data.

Enhanced understanding of soft-gluon effects in Z boson transverse momentum.

Improved theoretical accuracy for phi* observable.

Abstract

The presence of large logarithms in QCD corrections to observables spoils the validity of a calculation truncated at finite order and calls for an all-orders approach. The transverse momentum, $Q_T$, spectrum of massive lepton pairs, produced in hadron colliders by the Drell-Yan mechanism, has received a great deal of attention in electroweak phenomenology. We present and discuss a next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL) resummed calculation of a related observable, namely $\phi^*$ (phistar), that was recently introduced because of its distinct experimental advantages, but which is nonetheless sensitive to similar physics: soft-collinear gluon emission in the initial state. We also present various comparisons to collision data at the Tevatron and the LHC.