Hard Diffraction in Sherpa

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive simulation framework for jet production in diffractive events at NLO in QCD, validated with experimental data, and provides predictions for future Electron-Ion Collider experiments.

Contribution

It presents the first complete NLO simulation framework for diffractive jet production in Sherpa, including validation and future predictions.

Findings

Validation with H1 and ZEUS data confirms the model's accuracy.

Direct component suppression is necessary at NLO to explain factorisation breaking.

Predictions for EIC diffractive jet production are provided.

Abstract

We present the first complete simulation framework for the simulation of jet production in diffractive events at next-to leading order in QCD, matched to the parton shower. We validate the implementation in the SHERPA event generator with data from the H1 and ZEUS experiments for diffractive DIS and diffractive photoproduction. For the latter, we review different models aiming to explain the observed factorisation breaking and we argue that at NLO the direct component must also be suppressed. We provide predictions for diffractive jet production both in DIS and in photoproduction events for the upcoming EIC.