Theory uncertainties in the fiducial Drell-Yan cross section and distributions

TL;DR

This paper investigates theoretical uncertainties in the Drell-Yan lepton pair transverse momentum spectrum, focusing on scale choices in resummed calculations, and finds the predictions are robust and consistent with LHC data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed assessment of scale-setting uncertainties in resummed Drell-Yan predictions, demonstrating their impact on both differential spectra and fiducial cross sections.

Findings

Different scale choices yield compatible results within uncertainties.

Theoretical predictions accurately describe LHC data for the $p_T^{ ext{ll}}$ spectrum.

The robustness of the predictions supports their use in precision measurements.

Abstract

In these proceedings we study various sources of theoretical uncertainty in the Drell-Yan $p_T^{{\ell\ell}}$ spectrum focussing on the $p_T^{{\ell\ell}} \lesssim 100\, {\rm GeV}$ region. We consider several perturbative aspects related to the choice of the scale setting adopted in resummed calculations, and we assess their impact on the theoretical prediction both for the differential $p_T^{{\ell\ell}}$ spectrum and for the $\rm{N}^3\rm{LO}$ fiducial cross section. For both quantities, we find the results obtained with the different setups to be compatible with each other within the quoted uncertainty, highlighting the robustness of the theoretical prediction. In all cases, the experimental LHC data for the $p_T^{{\ell\ell}}$ spectrum is well described by our calculation.