Quantum Chromodynamics at Colliders

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) studies at colliders, focusing on precise measurements for new physics searches and developing new theoretical tools for complex regions.

Contribution

It highlights advancements in identifying measurable observables with high predictive accuracy and introduces new approximations in QCD for challenging regions.

Findings

High-precision observables can test QCD and reveal new physics

New QCD approximations extend understanding of complex processes

Progress enhances collider sensitivity to beyond Standard Model phenomena

Abstract

QCD is the accepted (that is, the effective) theory of the strong interaction; studies at colliders are no longer designed to establish this. Such studies can now be divided into two categories. The first involves the identification of observables which can be both measured and predicted at the level of a few percent. Such studies parallel those of the electroweak sector over the past fifteen years, and deviations from expectations would be a sign of new physics. These observables provide a firm ``place to stand'' from which to extend our understanding. This links to the second category of study, where one deliberately moves to regions in which the usual theoretical tools fail; here new approximations in QCD are developed to increase our portfolio of understood processes, and hence our sensitivity to new physics. Recent progress in both these aspects of QCD at colliders is discussed.