Pion Fragmentation Functions at High Energy Colliders

TL;DR

This paper refines the understanding of pion production in proton-proton collisions at high energies by incorporating precise LHC data into global QCD analyses, resolving previous inconsistencies and improving fragmentation function models.

Contribution

It presents a consistent set of pion fragmentation functions that accurately describe LHC data within theoretical uncertainties, enhancing the global QCD analysis framework.

Findings

LHC data can be described within uncertainties using the new fragmentation functions.

Inclusion of scale dependence resolves previous data conflicts.

The study improves the modeling of pion production at high energies.

Abstract

We revisit the description of pion production in proton-proton collisions in the light of the very precise data taken at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) over the past decade. First attempts to include LHC results in next-to-leading order global QCD analyses of parton-to-pion fragmentation functions insinuated some conflict between data sets at different center-of-mass system energies. We show that the data can be well described within their uncertainties by a consistent set of pion fragmentation functions once the theoretical scale dependence is taken into account in the global QCD analysis.