Oriented Event Shapes for massive Quarks

TL;DR

This paper computes oriented event-shape distributions for massive quarks at next-to-leading order, providing essential data for precise strong coupling constant measurements.

Contribution

It introduces the first calculation of oriented event-shape distributions for massive quarks up to order alpha_s, including total cross sections for vector and axial-vector currents.

Findings

Non-zero leading order result for vector current with massive quarks.

Significant enhancement compared to massless approximation.

Results are crucial for high-precision strong coupling analyses.

Abstract

In this work we present the computation of so-called oriented event-shape distributions for massive quarks up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$, along with the total oriented cross section in which one does not look at the geometric properties of the momentum distribution for particles in the final state. We consider the vector and axial-vector currents, and for the former, we find a non-vanishing result at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^0)$ that translates into a significant enhancement as compared to the massless approximation. Our results are an important ingredient for analyses that aim to determine the strong coupling with high accuracy.