On the Resummation of Subleading Logarithms in the Transverse Momentum Distribution of Vector Bosons Produced at Hadron Colliders

TL;DR

This paper compares two methods for resumming subleading logarithms in the transverse momentum distribution of vector bosons at hadron colliders, highlighting differences in their treatment and numerical predictions.

Contribution

It analyzes and contrasts two recent approaches to resumming subleading logarithms in vector boson transverse momentum distributions.

Findings

Different subleading logarithms are resummed in each approach.

Numerical differences are observed in the predicted cross sections.

Both methods successfully resum leading double logarithms.

Abstract

The perturbation series for electroweak vector boson production at small transverse momentum is dominated by large double logarithms at each order in perturbation theory. An accurate theoretical prediction therefore requires a resummation of these logarithms. This can be performed either directly in transverse momentum space or in impact parameter (Fourier transform) space. While both approaches resum the same leading double logarithms, the subleading logarithms are, in general, treated differently. We comment on two recent approaches to this problem, emphasising the particular subleading logarithms resummed in each case and the numerical differences in the cross sections which result.