Further Reduction of the PDF Uncertainty in the High-Mass Drell-Yan Spectrum Utilizing Neutral and Charged Current Inputs

TL;DR

This paper presents an improved method to reduce PDF uncertainties in high-mass Drell-Yan measurements at the LHC by incorporating both neutral and charged current inputs, enhancing the precision of BSM searches.

Contribution

The authors extend a previous strategy by including charged current Drell-Yan data, significantly reducing systematic PDF uncertainties in high-mass spectrum analyses.

Findings

Systematic PDF uncertainties can be reduced by factors of several in high-mass regions.

Inclusion of charged current data enhances the precision of Drell-Yan background modeling.

Method is applicable to future high-luminosity LHC datasets and Run 3 analyses.

Abstract

Uncertainties in the parametrization of Parton Distribution Functions are a serious limiting systematic uncertainty in Large Hadron Collider searches for Beyond the Standard Model physics. This is especially true for measurements at high scales induced by quark and anti-quark collisions, where Drell-Yan continuum backgrounds are dominant. In Phys. Rev. D99, 054004 (2019) we presented a unique strategy for improving uncertainties using neutral current Drell-Yan backgrounds and here we update that strategy and include charged current Drell-Yan final states in the program and demonstrate significant improvements. Through a judicious selection of measurable kinematical quantities can reduce the assigned systematic PDF uncertainties by significant factors in limit-setting or discovery for neutral and charged, high mass Intermediate Vector Bosons. This approach will be take advantage of the huge statistical precision of future High Luminosity, Large Hadron Collider Standard Model datasets and could also improve uncertainties in the high statistics results from LHC Run 3.