Stability of Azimuthal-angle Observables under Higher Order Corrections in Inclusive Three-jet Production

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of azimuthal-angle observables in inclusive three-jet production under higher order corrections, demonstrating their robustness for probing BFKL dynamics at the LHC.

Contribution

It calculates next-to-leading order corrections to azimuthal-angle ratios with three jets, confirming their suitability for studying BFKL effects in collider experiments.

Findings

Corrections are moderate, supporting the observables' stability.

The observables are suitable for comparison with experimental data.

The approach accounts for minijet activity and different rapidity configurations.

Abstract

Recently, a new family of observables consisting of azimuthal-angle generalised ratios was proposed in a kinematical setup that resembles the usual Mueller-Navelet jets but with an additional tagged jet in the central region of rapidity. Non-tagged minijet activity between the three jets can affect significantly the azimuthal angle orientation of the jets and is accounted for by the introduction of two BFKL gluon Green functions. Here, we calculate the, presumably, most relevant higher order corrections to the observables by now convoluting the three leading-order jet vertices with two gluon Green functions at next-to-leading logarithmic approximation. The corrections appear to be mostly moderate giving us confidence that the recently proposed observables are actually an excellent way to probe the BFKL dynamics at the LHC. Furthermore, we allow for the jets to take values in different rapidity bins in various configurations such that a comparison between our predictions and the experimental data is a straightforward task.