Transverse Momentum Resummation for $t$-channel single top quark production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper develops a resummation formalism for accurately predicting the transverse momentum distributions in $t$-channel single top quark production at the LHC, including color coherence effects and proposing a new observable for experimental testing.

Contribution

It introduces a next-to-leading logarithm resummation approach incorporating full NLO corrections and color coherence effects, improving upon previous predictions like PYTHIA.

Findings

Resummation significantly alters the $q_ot$ distribution compared to PYTHIA.

Color coherence effects are crucial for forward jet regions.

Proposes the $oldsymbol{oldsymbol{oldsymbol{oldsymbol{ ext{phi}}}^*}}$ observable for experimental validation.

Abstract

We study the effect of multiple soft gluon radiation on the kinematical distributions of the $t$-channel single top quark production at the LHC. By applying the transverse momentum dependent factorization formalism, large logarithms (of the ratio of large invariant mass $Q$ and small total transverse momentum $q_\perp$ of the single-top plus one-jet final state system) are resummed to all orders in the expansion of the strong interaction coupling at the accuracy of next-to-leading logarithm, including the complete next-to-leading order corrections. We show that the main difference from PYTHIA prediction lies on the inclusion of the exact color coherence effect between the initial and final states in our resummation calculation, which becomes more important when the final state jet is required to be in the forward region. We further propose a new experimental observable $\phi^*$ to test the effect of multiple gluon radiation in the single-top events. The effect of bottom quark mass is also discussed.