Forward-backward asymmetries of the heavy quark pair production in $e^+e^-$ collisions at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^2)$

TL;DR

This paper presents a computational method to calculate heavy quark pair production and their forward-backward asymmetries in electron-positron collisions at order  in QCD, including corrections and optimization techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a differential-level calculation framework for heavy quark production at  order using antenna subtraction, with new insights into QCD corrections and optimization methods.

Findings

QCD corrections to bottom quark AFB at the Z resonance are quantified.

The antenna subtraction method effectively computes  order corrections.

Optimization via the Principle of Maximum Conformality improves correction estimates.

Abstract

The talk is on a computational set-up for calculating the production of a massive quark-antiquark pair in electron positron collisions to order $\alpha_s^2$ in the coupling of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at the differential level using the antenna subtraction method. Theoretical predictions on the production of top quark pairs in the continuum, and the bottom quark pairs at the $Z$ resonance, will be discussed. In particular, we would be focusing on the order $\alpha_s^2$ QCD corrections to the heavy quark forward-backward asymmetry (AFB) in electron positron collisions. In the case of the AFB of bottom quarks at the $Z$ resonance, the QCD corrections are determined with respect to both the bottom quark axis and the thrust axis. We will also briefly discuss improvements on these QCD corrections brought by applying the optimization procedure based on the Principle of Maximum Conformality.