Physics with Leptons and Photons at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper develops a high-precision phenomenological framework using the structure function approach to predict photon-initiated lepton production at the LHC, including detailed comparisons and a publicly available Monte Carlo generator.

Contribution

It introduces the SF approach for accurate predictions of photon-initiated processes at the LHC, including Z contributions and a new Monte Carlo tool for the community.

Findings

SF approach achieves percent-level precision in cross sections.

Photon-initiated processes significantly impact observables like $ heta_W$ and $M_W$.

The SF generator SFGen enables community use for lepton production studies.

Abstract

We present a phenomenological study of photon-initiated (PI) lepton production at the LHC, as implemented in the structure function (SF) approach. We provide detailed predictions for multi-differential lepton pair production, and show that the impact on observables sensitive to the the weak mixing angle, $\sin^2 \theta_W$, and $W$ boson mass, $M_W$, as well as PDFs can be non-negligible, in particular given the high precision being aimed for. The SF calculation can provide percent level precision in the corresponding production cross sections, and is therefore well positioned to account for LHC precision requirements. We consider the pure $\gamma\gamma$ channel, and compare in detail to the NLO collinear calculation. We in addition include initial-state $Z$ as well as mixed $\gamma /Z + q$ contributions, and assess their impact. We also consider photon-initiated lepton-lepton scattering, and again find the SF approach can provide high precision predictions for this process in way that can straightforwardly account for any fiducial cuts imposed. Finally, we provide a publicly available Monte Carlo generator, SFGen, for PI lepton pair production and lepton-lepton scattering within the SF approach, for use by the community.