W-boson production in TMD factorization

TL;DR

This paper investigates W-boson production at hadron colliders using TMD factorization, comparing predictions with experimental data, and emphasizing the importance of non-perturbative QCD effects and TMD distributions.

Contribution

It applies existing TMD extractions to W production, providing new predictions and comparisons with collider data, highlighting the need for further experimental and theoretical work.

Findings

Predictions align with ATLAS, CMS, and TeVatron data.

TMD effects are significant for low transverse momentum W production.

Results support broader application of TMD in collider phenomenology.

Abstract

At hadron colliders, the differential cross section for $W$ production can be factorized and it is sensitive transverse momentum dependent distributions (TMD) for low boson transverse momentum. While, often, the corresponding non-perturbative QCD contributions are extrapolated from $Z$ boson production, here we use an existing extraction (based on the code Artemide) of TMD which includes data coming from Drell-Yan and semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering, to provide checks and predictions for the $W$ case. Including fiducial cuts with different configurations and kinematical power corrections, we consider transverse momentum dependent cross sections within several intervals of the vector boson transverse mass. We perform the same study for the $p_T^{W^-}/p_T^{W^+}$ and $p_T^Z/p_T^W$ distributions. We compare our predictions with recent extractions of these quantities at ATLAS and CMS and results from TeVatron. The results encourage a broader experimental and phenomenological work, and a deeper study of TMD for the $W$ case.