# Production of Z-bosons in the parton branching method

## TL;DR

This paper combines TMD parton distributions from the Parton Branching method with NLO calculations using MCatNLO to predict Z-boson production spectra at the LHC, analyzing uncertainties and nonperturbative effects.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of PB TMDs with NLO MCatNLO calculations for Z-boson production, providing detailed uncertainty analysis and insights into low transverse momentum regions.

## Key findings

- Predictions agree well with LHC measurements within uncertainties.
- Renormalization and factorization scale uncertainties dominate.
- Moderate impact of TMD uncertainties on predictions.

## Abstract

Transverse Momentum Dependent (TMD) parton distributions obtained from the Parton Branching (PB) method are combined with next-to-leading-order (NLO) calculations of Drell-Yan (DY) production. We apply the MCatNLO method for the hard process calculation and matching with the PB TMDs. We compute predictions for the transverse momentum, rapidity and $\phi^*$ spectra of Z-bosons. We find that the theoretical uncertainties of the predictions are dominated by the renormalization and factorization scale dependence, while the impact of TMD uncertainties is moderate. The theoretical predictions agree well, within uncertainties, with measurements at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In particular, we study the region of lowest transverse momenta at the LHC, and comment on its sensitivity to nonperturbative TMD contributions.