Rapidity-Dependent Jet Vetoes

TL;DR

This paper introduces rapidity-dependent jet vetoes that enable precise, factorized, and resummable theoretical predictions, improving phase space division in LHC analyses, exemplified by Higgs production and validated against ATLAS data.

Contribution

It proposes a new class of jet veto variables weighted by rapidity, allowing for accurate resummation and phase space division in collider analyses.

Findings

Good agreement between NLL'+NLO predictions and ATLAS measurements for Higgs to gamma gamma.

The proposed veto variables can be applied to various SM processes like Drell-Yan and diboson production.

The method provides a theoretically clean way to implement central jet vetoes.

Abstract

Jet vetoes are a prominent part of the signal selection in various analyses at the LHC. We discuss jet vetoes for which the transverse momentum of a jet is weighted by a smooth function of the jet rapidity. With a suitable choice of the rapidity-weighting function, such jet-veto variables can be factorized and resummed allowing for precise theory predictions. They thus provide a complementary way to divide phase space into exclusive jet bins. In particular, they provide a natural and theoretically clean way to implement a tight veto on central jets with the veto constraint getting looser for jets at increasingly forward rapidities. We mainly focus our discussion on the 0-jet case in color-singlet processes, using Higgs production through gluon fusion as a concrete example. For one of our jet-veto variables we compare the resummed theory prediction at NLL'+NLO with the recent differential cross section measurement by the ATLAS experiment in the $H\to\gamma\gamma$ channel, finding good agreement. We also propose that these jet-veto variables can be measured and tested against theory predictions in other SM processes, such as Drell-Yan, diphoton, and weak diboson production.