Electroweak boson production at large transverse momentum in double polarized $pp$ scattering at next-to-leading order accuracy

TL;DR

This paper calculates next-to-leading order corrections for electroweak boson production at high transverse momentum in polarized proton-proton collisions, providing insights into spin-dependent phenomena relevant for RHIC experiments.

Contribution

It presents the first NLO QCD calculation of electroweak boson production with polarization effects in hadronic collisions, including a detailed treatment of gamma5 issues.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect cross sections and asymmetries.

Results are relevant for interpreting RHIC polarization experiments.

The calculation enhances theoretical precision for electroweak boson production.

Abstract

We compute the next-to-leading order corrections to the cross section for the production of electroweak gauge bosons ($Z$, $W^\pm$ and $\gamma^*$) with large transverse momentum in double (longitudinally) polarized hadronic collisions. The calculation is fully performed in the HVBM scheme within dimensional regularization with a careful treatment of issues arising due to the appearance of $\gamma^5$ in polarization projectors and axial couplings. We study the phenomenological consequences of the NLO corrections at the level of both the double polarized cross section and the corresponding asymmetries at RHIC kinematics.