Inclusive Jet and Dijet Production at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper presents high-precision measurements of inclusive jet and dijet production at the Tevatron, compares them with QCD predictions, and discusses implications for parton distributions and quark substructure limits.

Contribution

It provides improved experimental data on jet production at Tevatron and evaluates their consistency with quantum chromodynamics, including setting a new limit on quark substructure.

Findings

Measurements agree with QCD predictions within uncertainties.

Dijet distributions set a 2.5 TeV limit on quark substructure.

Systematic uncertainties are comparable to theoretical uncertainties.

Abstract

High energy jet distributions measured since 1992 at the Fermilab Tevatron proton--antiproton collider are presented and compared to theoretical predictions. The statistical uncertainties on these measurements are significantly reduced relative to previous results. The systematic uncertainties are comparable in size to the uncertainty in the theoretical predictions. Although some discrepancies between theory and measurements are noted, the inclusive jet and dijet cross sections can be described by quantum chromodynamics. Prospects for reducing the uncertainty in the theoretical predictions by incorporating Tevatron measurements into the proton parton distributions are discussed. Dijet distributions, in excellent agreement with quantum chromodynamics, set a 2.5 TeV limit on the mass of quark constituents.