Determination of the Transverse Momentum of W Bosons in Hadronic Collisions via Forward Folding Techniques

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method called forward folding to more accurately measure the W boson transverse momentum in hadronic collisions, reducing uncertainties crucial for testing QCD and measuring the W mass.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel forward folding technique that improves the estimation of the W boson transverse momentum spectrum, lowering systematic uncertainties compared to existing methods.

Findings

Reduced systematic uncertainties in W boson pT measurement

Enhanced agreement with QCD predictions

Potential for more precise W mass measurements

Abstract

The measurement of the transverse momentum of W bosons in hadron collisions provides not only an important test of QCD calculations, but also is an important input for the precision measurement of the W boson mass. While the measurement of the Z boson transverse momentum is experimentally well under control, the available unfolding techniques for the W boson final states lead generically to relatively large uncertainties. In this paper, we present a new methodology to estimate the W boson transverse momentum spectrum, significantly improving the systematic uncertainties of current approaches.