The top-quark charge asymmetry at the LHC and Tevatron through NNLO QCD and NLO EW

TL;DR

This paper provides the most precise Standard Model predictions for the top-quark charge asymmetry at the LHC, incorporating NNLO QCD and NLO electroweak corrections, and compares them with experimental data.

Contribution

It delivers the first comprehensive NNLO QCD and NLO EW predictions for top-quark charge asymmetry at the LHC, including differential and cumulative asymmetries, with improved theoretical accuracy.

Findings

Higher-order corrections significantly impact asymmetry predictions.

Residual scale dependence is reduced with NNLO and NLO corrections.

Predictions are in good agreement with current LHC measurements.

Abstract

We provide the most up-to-date predictions for the top-quark charge asymmetry A_C at the LHC with a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. Our result is accurate at the NNLO level in the strong interactions and at the complete-NLO level in both the strong and electroweak interactions. We present results for the inclusive A_C, several differential asymmetries as well as the P_{T,tt} and M_{tt} cumulative asymmetries. Similarly to the Tevatron forward-backward asymmetry A_FB, both NNLO QCD and NLO EW corrections to A_C are found to be significant. The inclusion of higher-order corrections reduces the residual scale dependence in the predicted A_C. The pattern of higher-order corrections indicates good perturbative control over these observables. We conclude that at present there is nearly uniform agreement between Standard Model predictions and LHC measurements across all A_C-related observables. All previously published differential A_FB predictions at the Tevatron are updated to the same accuracy.