The SAGEX Review on Scattering Amplitudes, Chapter 12: Amplitudes and collider physics

TL;DR

This review discusses how advances in scattering amplitudes and perturbative QFT enhance the precision of collider physics predictions, focusing on soft radiation and computational techniques for collider data analysis.

Contribution

It summarizes recent developments in scattering amplitudes and their application to improving theoretical predictions for collider experiments.

Findings

Enhanced understanding of soft radiation effects at colliders

Improved computational methods for amplitude calculations

Better alignment of theoretical predictions with experimental data

Abstract

We explore how various topics in modern scattering amplitudes research find application in the description of collider physics processes. After a brief review of experimentally measured quantities and how they are related to amplitudes, we summarise recent developments in perturbative QFT, and how they have impacted our ability to do precision physics with colliders. Next, we explain how the study of (next-to-)soft radiation is directly relevant to increasing theoretical precision for key processes at the LHC and related experiments. Finally, we describe the various techniques that are used to turn theoretical calculations into something more closely approaching the output of a particle accelerator.