Parton-to-Pion Fragmentation Reloaded

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive global analysis of parton-to-pion fragmentation functions at NLO accuracy, integrating recent experimental data from various high-energy processes to improve understanding of pion production mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a new global analysis incorporating latest experimental data, refining the parton-to-pion fragmentation functions with improved accuracy and uncertainty estimates.

Findings

Excellent fit to all data sets

Reduced uncertainties in fragmentation functions

Comparison shows improvements over previous analysis

Abstract

We present a new, comprehensive global analysis of parton-to-pion fragmentation functions at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD. The obtained results are based on the latest experimental information on single-inclusive pion production in electron-positron annihilation, lepton-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering, and proton-proton collisions. An excellent description of all data sets is achieved, and the remaining uncertainties in parton-to-pion fragmentation functions are estimated based on the Hessian method. Extensive comparisons to the results from our previous global analysis are performed.