Third order fiducial predictions for Drell-Yan at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper provides a highly precise third-order calculation of the Drell-Yan process at the LHC, including resummation and analysis of experimental cuts, reducing uncertainties to below one percent.

Contribution

It introduces a state-of-the-art third-order fixed and resummed calculation of Drell-Yan fiducial cross sections with detailed subtraction techniques and cut sensitivity analysis.

Findings

Residual uncertainties are reduced to below 1%.

Fiducial cross section predictions are robust against infrared physics.

Adjusting fiducial cuts can improve prediction stability.

Abstract

The Drell-Yan process at hadron colliders is a fundamental benchmark for the study of strong interactions and the extraction of electro-weak parameters. The outstanding precision of the LHC demands very accurate theoretical predictions with a full account of fiducial experimental cuts. In this letter we present a state-of-the-art calculation of the fiducial cross section and of differential distributions for this process at third order in the strict fixed-order expansion in the strong coupling, as well as including the all-order resummation of logarithmic corrections. Together with these results, we present a detailed study of the subtraction technique used to carry out the calculation for different sets of experimental cuts, as well as of the sensitivity of the fiducial cross section to infrared physics. We find that residual theory uncertainties are reduced to the percent level and that the robustness of the predictions can be improved by a suitable adjustment of fiducial cuts.