Electroweak and QCD corrections to $Z$-boson production with one $b$ jet in a massive 5 Flavor Scheme

TL;DR

This paper calculates electroweak and QCD corrections to Z-boson production with one b-jet at the LHC, highlighting their importance for precise measurements and new physics searches, especially considering b-quark mass effects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of electroweak and QCD corrections within a massive 5 Flavor Scheme for Z+b-jet production at the LHC.

Findings

Electroweak corrections significantly affect Z+b-jet cross sections.

b-quark mass effects are relevant at the level of differential distributions.

Inclusion of corrections improves the accuracy of background modeling for Higgs and new physics searches.

Abstract

We compute the $O(\alpha_s \alpha^2)$ and $O(\alpha_s^2 \alpha)$ contributions to the production cross section of a $Z$ boson with one $b$ jet at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and study their phenomenological relevance for LHC physics. The accurate prediction of hadronic $Z+b$-jet production is needed to control a background that greatly affects both the measurement of Higgs-boson properties and searches of new physics at the LHC. At the same time it could enable the first precise measurement of the $b$-quark parton distribution function. In this context $b$-quark mass effects become relevant and need to be studied with care, both at the level of the hard process and at the level of the initial- and final-state parton evolution. It is the aim of this paper to explore some of these issues in the framework of a massive 5 Flavor Scheme and to assess the need for both the inclusion of electroweak corrections, in addition to QCD corrections, and $b$-quark mass effects in the prediction of total and differential cross sections for hadronic $Z+b$-jet production.