NNLO QCD predictions for fully-differential top-quark pair production at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper provides precise NNLO QCD predictions for differential distributions of top-quark pairs at the Tevatron, including the forward-backward asymmetry, showing good agreement with experimental data and reduced theoretical uncertainties.

Contribution

The study offers the first fully differential NNLO QCD calculations for top-pair production at the Tevatron, improving accuracy over previous approximate methods.

Findings

NNLO predictions agree well with experimental data.

Theory uncertainties are significantly reduced.

Detailed analysis of the top-quark forward-backward asymmetry.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive study of differential distributions for Tevatron top-pair events at the level of stable top quarks. All calculations are performed in NNLO QCD with the help of a fully differential partonic Monte-Carlo and are exact at this order in perturbation theory. We present predictions for all kinematic distributions for which data exists. Particular attention is paid on the top-quark forward-backward asymmetry which we study in detail. We compare the NNLO results with existing approximate NNLO predictions as well as differential distributions computed with different parton distribution sets. Theory errors are significantly smaller than current experimental ones with overall agreement between theory and data.