Mueller-Navelet jets at LHC: BFKL versus high-energy DGLAP

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether BFKL resummation or fixed-order perturbative QCD better describes Mueller-Navelet jet production at the LHC, using numerical analysis to distinguish their predictions based on jet transverse momentum cuts.

Contribution

It provides numerical evidence that asymmetric jet transverse momentum cuts can differentiate BFKL-resummed predictions from fixed-order calculations in Mueller-Navelet jet observables.

Findings

Asymmetric cuts help distinguish BFKL and fixed-order predictions.

Numerical analysis shows differences in certain observables.

Supports the use of specific cuts to test QCD approaches.

Abstract

The production of forward jets separated by a large rapidity gap at LHC, the so-called Mueller-Navelet jets, is a fundamental testfield for perturbative QCD in the high-energy limit. Several analyses have already provided with evidence about the compatibility of theoretical predictions, based on collinear factorization and BFKL resummation of energy logarithms in the next-to-leading approximation, with the CMS experimental data at 7 TeV of center-of-mass energy. However, the question if the same data can be described also by fixed-order perturbative approaches has not been yet fully answered. In this paper we provide numerical evidence that the mere use of partially asymmetric cuts in the transverse momenta of the detected jets allows a clear separation between BFKL-resummed and fixed-order predictions in some observables related with the Mueller-Navelet jet production process.