Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gehrmann, T
• Grazzini, M
• Kallweit, S
• Maierhöfer, P
• von Manteuffel, A
• Pozzorini, S
• Rathlev, D
• Tancredi, L

Titel

W+ W- production at hadron colliders in next to next to leading order QCD

Ist Teil von

• Physical review letters, 2014-11, Vol.113 (21), p.212001-212001, Article 212001

Ort / Verlag

United States

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

PROLA

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Charged gauge boson pair production at the Large Hadron Collider allows detailed probes of the fundamental structure of electroweak interactions. We present precise theoretical predictions for on-shell W+ W- production that include, for the first time, QCD effects up to next to next to leading order in perturbation theory. As compared to next to leading order, the inclusive W+ W- cross section is enhanced by 9% at 7 TeV and 12% at 14 TeV. The residual perturbative uncertainty is at the 3% level. The severe contamination of the W+ W- cross section due to top-quark resonances is discussed in detail. Comparing different definitions of top-free W+ W- production in the four and five flavor number schemes, we demonstrate that top-quark resonances can be separated from the inclusive W+ W- cross section without a significant loss of theoretical precision.