MiNNLO$_{\text{PS}}$: A new method to match NNLO QCD to parton showers

TL;DR

The paper introduces MiNNLO$_{ ext{PS}}$, a new method that seamlessly combines NNLO QCD calculations with parton shower simulations for accurate modeling of heavy system production in hadronic collisions.

Contribution

It presents a novel, efficient approach to match NNLO QCD with parton showers without the need for reweighting or unphysical merging scales.

Findings

Successfully applied to Higgs production at the LHC

Accurately reproduces NNLO corrections in simulations

Preserves leading logarithmic structure of parton showers

Abstract

We present a novel method to combine QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) with parton shower (PS) simulations, that can be applied to the production of heavy systems in hadronic collisions, such as colour singlets or a $t\bar{t}$ pair. The NNLO corrections are included by connecting the MiNLO$^\prime$ method with transverse-momentum resummation, and they are calculated at generation time without any additional reweighting, making the algorithm considerably efficient. Moreover, the combination of different jet multiplicities does not require any unphysical merging scale, and the matching preserves the structure of the leading logarithmic corrections of the Monte Carlo simulation for parton showers ordered in transverse momentum. We present proof-of-concept applications to hadronic Higgs production and the Drell-Yan process at the LHC.