Search

VBFNLO is a flexible parton level Monte Carlo program for the simulation of vector boson fusion (VBF), QCD-induced single and double vector boson production plus two jets, and double and triple vector boson production (plus jet) in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant, as well as Higgs boson plus two and three jet production via gluon fusion at the one-loop level. For the new version -- Version 3.0 -- several major enhancements have been included. An interface according to the Binoth Les Houches Accord (BLHA) has been added for all VBF and di/tri-boson processes including fully leptonic decays. For all dimension-8 operators affecting vector boson scattering (VBS) processes, a modified T-matrix unitarization procedure has been implemented. Several new production processes have been added, namely the VBS $Z\gamma jj$ and $\gamma \gamma jj$ processes at NLO, $\gamma \gamma jj $, $WWj$ and $ZZj$ production at NLO including the loop-induced gluon-fusion contributions and the gluon-fusion one-loop induced $\Phi jjj$ ($\Phi$ is a CP-even or CP-odd scalar boson) process at LO, retaining the full top-mass dependence. Finally, the code has been parallelized using OpenMPI., Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; new code available at http://ific.uv.es/vbfnlo/. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1107.4038

In this paper, we present results at next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD for photon pair production in association with two jets via vector boson scattering within the Standard Model (SM), and also in an effective field theory framework with anomalous gauge coupling effects via bosonic dimension-6 and 8 operators. We observe that, compared to other processes in the class of two electroweak (EW) vector boson production in association with two jets, more exclusive cuts are needed in order to suppress the SM QCD-induced background channel. As expected, the NLO QCD corrections reduce the scale uncertainties considerably. Using a well-motivated dynamical scale choice, we find moderate $K$-factors for the EW-induced process while the QCD-induced channel receives much larger corrections. Furthermore, we observe that applying a cut of $\Delta \phi_{j_2 \gamma_1}^{\text{cut}} < 2.5$ for the second hardest jet and the hardest photon helps to increase the signal significance and reduces the impact of higher-order QCD corrections.

In this letter, we address the question of whether the almost four standard deviations difference between theory and experiment for the muon anomalous magnetic moment $a_\mu$ can be explained as a higher-order Standard Model perturbation effect in the pion form factor measurements. This question has, until now, remained open, obscuring the source of discrepancies between the measurements. We calculate the last radiative corrections for the extraction of the pion form factor, which were believed to be potentially substantial enough to explain the data within the Standard Model. We find that the corrections are too small to diminish existing discrepancies in the determination of the pion form factor for different kinematical configurations of low-energy BABAR, BESS-III and KLOE experiments. Consequently, they cannot noticeably change the previous predictions for $a_\mu$ and decrease the deviations between theory and direct measurements. To solve the above issues, new data and better understanding of low-energy experimental setups are needed, especially as new direct $a_\mu$ measurements at Fermilab and J-PARC will provide new insights and substantially shrink the experimental error.

We present the calculation of the full next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to Higgs boson pair production via gluon fusion at the LHC, including the exact top-mass dependence in the two-loop virtual and one-loop real corrections. This is the first independent cross-check of the NLO QCD corrections presented in the literature before. Our calculation relies on numerical integrations of Feynman integrals, stabilised with integration-by-parts and a Richardson extrapolation to the narrow width approximation. We present results for the total cross section as well as for the invariant Higgs-pair-mass distribution at the LHC, including for the first time a study of the uncertainty due to the scheme and scale choice for the top mass in the loops., Comment: 8 pages double column, 2 figures. V2: identical to published version

We consider electro-weak Higgs plus three jets production at NLO QCD beyond strict VBF acceptance cuts. We investigate, for the first time, how accurate the VBF approximation is in these regions and within perturbative uncertainties, by a detailed comparison of full and approximate calculations. We find that a rapidity gap between the tagging jets guarantees a good approximation, while an invariant mass cut alone is not sufficient, which needs to be confronted with experimental choices. We also find that a significant part of the QCD corrections can be attributed to Higgs-Strahlungs-type topologies., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, add VBSCAN report number

Cross sections and differential distributions for ZA production in association with two jets via vector boson fusion are presented at next-to-leading order in QCD. The leptonic decays of the Z boson with full off-shell effects and spin correlations are taken into account. The uncertainties due to different scale choices and pdf sets are studied. Furthermore, we analyze the effect of including anomalous quartic gauge couplings at NLO QCD., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures

We study WZ production with anomalous couplings at $\bar{n}$NLO QCD using the LoopSim method in combination with the Monte Carlo program VBFNLO. Higher order corrections to WZ production are dominated by additional hard jet radiation. Those contributions are insensitive to anomalous couplings and should thus be removed in analyses. We do this using a dynamical jet veto based on the transverse energy of the QCD and EW final state particles. This removes jet dominated events without introducing problematic logs like a fixed $p_{\text{T}}$ jet veto., Comment: Talk presented at Fourth Annual Large Hadron Collider Physics conference (LHCP2016), 13-18 June 2016, Lund, Sweden (10 pages)

We study the production of the four-lepton final state $l^+ l^- l^+ l^-$, predominantly produced by a pair of electroweak Z bosons, ZZ. Using the LoopSim method, we merge NLO QCD results for ZZ and ZZ+jet and obtain approximate NNLO predictions for ZZ production. The exact gluon-fusion loop-squared contribution to the ZZ process is also included. On top of that, we add to our merged sample the gluon-fusion ZZ+jet contributions from the gluon-gluon channel, which is formally of N^3LO and provides approximate results at NLO for the gluon-fusion mechanism. The predictions are obtained with the VBFNLO package and include the leptonic decays of the Z bosons with all off-shell and spin-correlation effects, as well as virtual photon contributions. We compare our predictions with existing results for the total inclusive cross section at NNLO and find a very good agreement. Then, we present results for differential distributions for two experimental setups, one used in searches for anomalous triple gauge boson couplings, the other in Higgs analyses in the four charged-lepton final state channel. We find that the approximate NNLO corrections are large, reaching up to 20% at high transverse momentum of the Z boson or the leading lepton, and are not covered by the NLO scale uncertainties. Distributions of the four-lepton invariant mass are, however, stable with respect to QCD corrections at this order., Comment: 21 pages, 2 tables, 9 figures

We study QCD radiation for the WH and WZ production processes at the LHC. We identify the regions sensitive to anomalous couplings, by considering jet observables, computed at NLO QCD with the use of the Monte Carlo program VBFNLO. Based on these observations, we propose the use of a dynamical jet veto. The dynamical jet veto avoids the problem of large logarithms depending on the veto scale, hence, providing more reliable predictions and simultaneously increasing the sensitivity to anomalous coupling searches, especially in the WZ production process., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

In these proceedings, we present results for Higgs production at the LHC via gluon fusion with triple real emission corrections and the validity range of the heavy-top effective theory approximation for this process. For a general CP-violating Higgs boson, we show that bottom-quark loop corrections in combination with large values of $\tan \beta $ significantly distort differential distributions., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the proceedings of Conference: C14-07-02

We discuss results for di-boson plus two jets production processes at the LHC at NLO QCD. Issues related to the scale choice are reviewed. We focus on the distributions of the invariant mass and rapidity separation of the two hardest jets and show, for $W^\pm \gamma jj$ and $Z\gamma jj$ production, how the contribution from the radiative decays of the massive gauge bosons can be significantly reduced., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, To appear in the proceedings of conference C14-07-02

Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the QCD-induced $pp \rightarrow l^+l^- \gamma j j +X$ and $pp \rightarrow \bar{\nu}_l \nu_l \gamma jj+X$ processes are presented. The latter is used to find an optimal cut to reduce the contribution of radiative photon emission off the charged leptons in the first channel. As expected, the scale uncertainties are significantly reduced at NLO and the QCD corrections are phase space dependent and important for precise measurements at the LHC., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

In this talk we discuss the implementation of the full next-to-leading order QCD corrections to electroweak Higgs boson plus three jet production at the LHC within the Matchbox framework of the Herwig++ event generator. We also present numerical results for integrated cross sections and kinematic distributions., Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, submission prepared for the Loops and Legs conference 2014, C14-04-27, reference added

The production of multiple gauge bosons via weak boson fusion is an important process at the LHC. It is relevant as a background process appearing in many searches and measurements, but also serves as a signal process when studying new-physics contributions to triple and in particular quartic gauge boson vertices. We first review the theoretical status of multi-boson production in weak boson fusion and present the current state of the art. In the second part, the impact of anomalous gauge couplings on this class of processes is discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the 22nd International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects (DIS 2014), 28 April - 2 May 2014 Warsaw (Poland)

We present the first calculation of next-to-leading order QCD corrections to QCD-induced ZZ production in association with two jets at hadron colliders. Both Z bosons decay leptonically with all off-shell effects, virtual photon contributions and spin-correlation effects fully taken into account. This process is an important background to weak boson scattering, to the measurement of quartic gauge couplings and to searches for signals of new physics beyond the Standard Model. As expected, the next-to-leading order corrections reduce significantly the scale uncertainty and show a non-trivial phase space dependence in kinematic distributions. Our code will be publicly available as part of the parton level Monte Carlo program VBFNLO., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.0505

In high energy hadronic collisions, a general CP-violating Higgs boson $\Phi$ with accompanying jets can be efficiently produced via gluon fusion, which is mediated by heavy quark loops. In this letter we study the dominant sub-channel $ gg \to \Phi ggg$ of the gluon fusion production process with triple real emission corrections at order $\alpha_s^5$. We go beyond the heavy top limit approximation and include the full mass dependence of the top- and bottom-quark contributions. Furthermore, we show within a toy-model scenario that bottom-quark loop contributions in combination with large values of $\tan \beta$ can modify visibly the differential distributions sensitive to $\mathcal{CP}$-measurements of the Higgs boson particle., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1306.1830

The QCD-induced $W^\pm \gamma$ production channels in association with two jets are computed at next-to-leading order QCD accuracy. The W bosons decay leptonicly and full off-shell and finite width effects as well as spin correlations are taken into account. These processes are important backgrounds to beyond Standard Model physics searches and also relevant to test the nature of the quartic gauge couplings of the Standard Model. The next-to-leading order corrections reduce the scale uncertainty significantly and show a non-trivial phase space dependence. Our code will be publicly available as part of the parton level Monte Carlo program VBFNLO., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1311.6738

We present a study of $W^+W^+jj$ and $W^-W^-jj$ production including leptonic decays in hadron-hadron collisions. The full electroweak and QCD induced contributions and their interferences are calculated at leading order. We find that, for inclusive cuts, the interference effects can be large if the jets are produced with large transverse momentum where, however, the production rate is suppressed. We also discuss the vector-boson-fusion (VBF) cuts and show the validity of the VBF approximation. The NLO QCD corrections to the QCD-induced channels are also calculated. Compared to the previous calculation, we allow the intermediate $W$ bosons to be off-shell. For on-shell $W$ production, we obtain an excellent agreement with previous results. Our code will be publicly available as part of the parton level Monte Carlo program VBFNLO., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, v2: added results using a 2nd scale choice, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

The implementation of the full next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to electroweak Higgs boson plus three jet production at hadron colliders such as the LHC within the Matchbox NLO framework of the Herwig++ event generator is discussed. We present numerical results for integrated cross sections and kinematic distributions., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Presented at the 11th International Symposium on Radiative Corrections (Applications of Quantum Field Theory to Phenomenology) - RADCOR 2013, 22-27 September 2013, Lumley Castle Hotel, Durham, UK

We present a summary of the first calculation of NLO QCD corrections to WZjj production with leptonic decays at the LHC. Our results show that the next-to-leading order corrections reduce significantly the scale uncertainties., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the inaugural conference Windows on the Universe, August 2013, Quy Nhon, Vietnam

The next-to-leading order QCD corrections to W gamma production in association with two jets via vector boson fusion are calculated, including the leptonic decay of the W with full off-shell effects and spin correlations. The process lends itself to a test of quartic gauge couplings. The next-to-leading order corrections reduce the scale uncertainty significantly and show a non-trivial phase space dependence., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Pair production of W gauge bosons is an important process at the LHC entering many experimental analyses, both as background in new-physics searches or Higgs measurements and as signal in precision studies and tests of the Standard Model. Therefore, accurate predictions for this class of processes are of great interest in order to exploit the full potential of LHC measurements. We use the LoopSim method to combine NLO QCD results for WW and WW+jet, as well as the loop-squared gluon-fusion contribution, to obtain approximate NNLO predictions for WW production. The cross sections are calculated with VBFNLO and include leptonic decays of the W bosons as well as finite-width and off-shell effects. We find that the size of the additional corrections beyond NLO can be significant and well outside of the NLO error bands given by renormalization and factorization scale variation. Applying a jet veto, we observe further negative corrections at NNLO, which we relate to the presence of large Sudakov logarithms., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; v2: expanded discussion in a few places, improved table 1, added references, version accepted by Nucl. Phys. B

The status of di-boson and tri-boson production is shortly review. Using the VBFNLO and the LOOPSIM package, approximated results at NNLO QCD are given for WZ production. Results for waa + jet at NLO QCD are also shown., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the proceedings of Conference:C13-04-22

Higgs production in association with three jets via gluon fusion (GF) is an important channel for the measurement of the CP-properties of the Higgs particle at the LHC. In this letter, we go beyond the heavy top effective theory approximation and include at LO the full mass dependence of the top- and bottom-quark contributions. We consider the dominant sub-channel gg -> H ggg which involves the manipulation of massive rank-5 hexagon integrals. Furthermore, we present results for several differential distributions and show deviations from the effective theory as large as 100% at high pT for light Higgs masses., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We report on the calculation of $W^\pm Zjj$ production with leptonic decays at hadron-hadron colliders at next-to-leading order in QCD. These processes are important both to test the quartic gauge couplings of the Standard Model and because they constitute relevant backgrounds to beyond standard model physics searches. Our results show that the next-to-leading order corrections reduce significantly the scale uncertainties and have a non-trivial phase space dependence., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Pair production of Z bosons in association with a hard jet is an important background for Higgs particle or new physics searches at the LHC. The loop-induced gluon-fusion process gg > ZZg contributes formally only at the next-to-next-to-leading order. Nevertheless, it can get enhanced by the large gluon flux at the LHC, and thus should be taken into account in relevant experimental searches. We provide the details and results of this calculation, which involves the manipulation of rank-5 pentagon integrals. Our results show that the gluon-fusion process can contribute more than 10% to the next-to-leading order QCD result and increases the overall scale uncertainty. Moreover, interference effects between Higgs and non-Higgs contributions can become large in phase-space regions where the Higgs is far off-shell., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

We use the LoopSim and VBFNLO packages to investigate a merged sample of partonic events that is accurate at NLO in QCD simultaneously for the WZ and WZ+jet production processes. In certain regions of phase space such a procedure is expected to account for the dominant part of the NNLO QCD corrections to the WZ production process. For a number of commonly used experimental observables, we find that these corrections are substantial, in the 30-100% range, and in some cases their inclusion can reduce scale uncertainties by a factor of two. As in the underlying VBFNLO calculations, we include the leptonic decays of the vector bosons and all off-shell and finite-width effects., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We review recent results in precision multiboson+jet phenomenology at the LHC. We discuss strategies how to compute these processes at NLO QCD and examine the impact of the perturbative corrections on the expected phenomenology, especially in the context of anomalous gauge boson couplings searches., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the "10th International Symposium on Radiative Corrections (Applications of Quantum Field Theory to Phenomenology)", RADCOR2011, Mamallapuram, India

In this letter we report on a calculation of W gamma gamma + jet production at next-to-leading order QCD. We include the leptonic decays of the W and take into account all off-shell and finite width effects. This is the first computation which falls into the category of triboson+jet production at next-to-leading order QCD. In total we find sizable corrections with nontrivial phase space dependencies. Therefore, our results are important for phenomenological analyses such as the extraction of anomalous electroweak quartic couplings from inclusive hadron collider data., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

In this work, some of the NLO QCD corrections for pp -> VVjj + X are presented. A program in Mathematica based on the structure of FeynCalc which automatically simplifies a set of amplitudes up to the hexagon level of rank 5 has been created for this purpose. We focus on two different topologies. The first involves all the virtual contributions needed for quadruple electroweak vector boson production, i.e. pp -> VVVV + X. In the second, the remaining "bosonic" corrections to electroweak triple vector boson production with an additional jet (pp -> VVV j + X) are computed. We show the factorization formula of the infrared divergences of the bosonic contributions for VVVV and VVVj production with V=(W,Z,gamma). Stability issues associated with the evaluation of the hexagons up to rank 5 are studied. The CPU time of the FORTRAN subroutines rounds the 2 milliseconds and seems to be competitive with other more sophisticated methods. Additionally, in Appendix A the master equations to obtain the tensor coefficients up to the hexagon level in the external momenta convention are presented including the ones needed for small Gram determinants., Comment: 48 pages,16 figures

In high energy hadronic collisions a scalar or pseudoscalar Higgs boson, Phi=H,A, can be efficiently produced via gluon fusion, which is mediated by heavy quark loops. We here consider double real emission corrections to Phi=A production, which lead to a Higgs plus two-jet final state, at order alpha_s^4. Full quark mass effects are considered in the calculation of scattering amplitudes for the CP-odd Higgs boson A, as induced by quark triangle-, box- and pentagon-diagrams. They complement the analogous results for a CP-even Higgs boson H in Ref.[1]. Interference effects between loops with top and bottom quarks as well as between CP-even and CP-odd couplings of the heavy quarks are fully taken into account., Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures

We report on a detailed investigation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to $W\gamma$+jet production at the Tevatron and the LHC using a fully-flexible parton-level Monte Carlo program. We include the full leptonic decay of the $W$, taking into account all off-shell and finite width effects, as well as non-standard $WW\gamma$ couplings. We find particularly sizable corrections for the currently allowed parameter range of anomalous couplings imposed by LEP data. In total the NLO differential distributions reveal a substantial phase space dependence of the corrections, leaving considerable sensitivity to anomalous couplings beyond scale uncertainty at large momentum transfers in the anomalous vertex., Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, published version

We discuss the impact of anomalous WW$\gamma$ and WWZ couplings on WZ+jet production at next-to-leading order QCD, including full leptonic decays of the electroweak gauge bosons. While the inclusive hadronic cross sections do not exhibit any particular sensitivity to anomalous couplings once the residual QCD scale uncertainties are taken into account, the transverse momentum distributions show substantial deviations from the Standard Model, provided that the anomalous vertices are probed at large enough momentum transfers., Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures. References added, published version

We investigate the behaviour of the perturbative relation between the photon energy spectrum in B -> Xs gamma and the hadronic P+ spectrum in semileptonic B -> Xu l nu decay at high orders in perturbation theory in the "large-beta_0" limit, in which only terms of order alpha_s^n beta_0^(n-1) are retained. The leading renormalon in the weight function W(Delta,P_gamma) relating the two spectra is confirmed to be at u=1/2, corresponding to nonperturbative corrections at O(Lambda_QCD/m_b). We show that the P_gamma dependent pieces of the weight function have no infrared renormalons in this limit, and so the factorial growth in perturbation theory arises solely from the constant terms. We find no numerical enhancement of leading logarithms, suggesting that fixed-order perturbation theory is more appropriate than a leading-log resummation for the extraction of |Vub|. The importance of various terms in the expansion of the weight function is studied using a model for the B -> Xs gamma photon spectrum. Our analysis suggests that higher order perturbative corrections do not introduce a significant uncertainty in the extraction of |Vub|., Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures

We study the large order behaviour in perturbation theory of the Bjorken, Ellis-Jaffe and Gross-Llewellyn-Smith sum rules. In particular, we consider their first infrared renormalons, for which we obtain their analytic structure with logarithmic accuracy and also an approximate determination of their normalization constant. Estimates of higher order terms of the perturbative series are given. The Renormalon subtracted scheme is worked out for these observables and compared with experimental data. Overall, good agreement with experiment is found. This allows us to obtain {\hat a}_0 and some higher-twist non-perturbative constants from experiment: {\hat a}_0=0.141\pm 0.089; f_{3,RS}(1 GeV)=-0.124^{+0.137}_{-0.142} GeV^2., Comment: 23 pages, 18 figures, one reference added, journal version

Reparametrization invariance is the invariance of the heavy mass limit under small changes of the heavy-quark four velocity. We discuss the implications of this invariance for non-local light cone operators, the matrix elements of which are relevant for the leading and subleading shape functions describing differential rates for inclusive heavy-to-light transitions., Comment: 14 pages, no figures