Next-to-Leading Order QCD Corrections to Heavy-Flavour Production in Neutral Current DIS

TL;DR

This paper details the calculation of next-to-leading order QCD corrections for heavy-flavour production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering, providing theoretical insights and phenomenological implications for future collider experiments.

Contribution

First calculation of NLO pQCD corrections for polarized DIS, including phase space decompositions and phenomenological applications.

Findings

NLO corrections computed for polarized DIS.

Phase space decomposition methods analyzed.

Results inform future Electron-Ion Collider studies.

Abstract

The calculations for the production of heavy quarks in deeply inelastic scattering (DIS) can be seen as an illustrative example in the framework of perturbative Quantum Chromo Dynamics (pQCD). In this thesis, I give an overview of all steps that are required for this computation. First, I give an introduction to the fundamental theoretical basics. Next, I present the calculation of the matrix elements which are a main part of the work. The next-to-leading order (NLO) pQCD corrections for polarized DIS have been obtained here for the first time. Then, I discuss two different phase space decompositions which provide another important ingredient to the performed study. Practical results of the computations are shown first on a partonic level and, next, I present some phenomenological applications on a hadronic level. These results shed a first light onto the physical opportunities at a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).