Charm production in association with W and Z at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper analyzes charm quark jet production associated with W and Z bosons at the LHC to improve understanding of proton structure, especially the strange and charm quark distributions, through cross-section calculations and comparisons.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of W/Z +c cross sections using various PDFs, highlighting the role of strange quark distributions in these processes.

Findings

Cross-section differences relate to underlying PDFs.

Ratios can help extract strange and charm content.

W +c production is sensitive to strange quark distribution.

Abstract

The production of charm quark jets in association with electroweak gauge bosons at the LHC can be used as a tool to constrain quark parton distribution functions. Motivated by recent measurements at the LHC, we calculate cross sections for W/Z +c, comparing these to W/Z+jet, for various PDF sets. The cross-section differences can be understood in terms of the different underlying PDFs, with the strange quark distribution being particularly important for W +c production. We discuss appropriately defined ratios and comment on how the measurements at the LHC can be used to extract information on the strange and charm content of the proton at high scales.