Nonperturbative contributions to a resummed leptonic angular distribution in inclusive neutral vector boson production

TL;DR

This paper analyzes nonperturbative effects on the transverse momentum distribution of Z/γ* bosons in hadron collisions, using Tevatron data to quantify these effects within the CSS resummation framework at NNLL accuracy.

Contribution

It provides a detailed determination of the nonperturbative component in the CSS resummation formalism using new angular distribution data from the Tevatron.

Findings

Nonperturbative component is essential for describing angular data.

Scale dependence significantly affects the nonperturbative estimates.

Excellent agreement between data and NNLL perturbative predictions.

Abstract

We present an analysis of nonperturbative contributions to the transverse momentum distribution of $Z/\gamma^*$ bosons produced at hadron colliders. The new data on the angular distribution $\phi^*_\eta$ of Drell-Yan pairs measured at the Tevatron is shown to be in excellent agreement with a perturbative QCD prediction based on the Collins-Soper-Sterman (CSS) resummation formalism at NNLL accuracy. Using these data, we determine the nonperturbative component of the CSS resummed cross section and estimate its dependence on arbitrary resummation scales and other factors. With the scale dependence included at the NNLL level, a significant nonperturbative component is needed to describe the angular data.