NLO QCD and electroweak corrections to W+\gamma\ production with leptonic W-boson decays

TL;DR

This paper calculates next-to-leading-order electroweak and QCD corrections to W+bb production with leptonic W decay, providing detailed predictions for LHC energies and exploring effects of anomalous couplings.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive NLO electroweak correction calculation for W+bb production including off-shell W effects and photon-induced processes, with implementation in Monte Carlo tools.

Findings

Electroweak corrections significantly affect cross sections and distributions.

Photon-induced processes contribute notably at high energies.

Results enable precise LHC phenomenology and anomalous coupling studies.

Abstract

We present a calculation of the next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections to W+\gamma\ production, including the leptonic decay of the W boson and taking into account all off-shell effects of the W boson, where the finite width of the W boson is implemented using the complex-mass scheme. Corrections induced by incoming photons are fully included and find particular emphasis in the discussion of phenomenological predictions for the LHC. The corresponding next-to-leading-order QCD corrections are reproduced as well. In order to separate hard photons from jets, a quark-to-photon fragmentation function a la Glover and Morgan is employed. Our results are implemented into Monte Carlo programs allowing for the evaluation of arbitrary differential cross sections. We present integrated cross sections for the LHC at 7TeV, 8TeV, and 14TeV as well as differential distributions at 14TeV for bare muons and dressed leptons. Finally, we discuss the impact of anomalous WW\gamma\ couplings.