Rene Poncelet

The production of two isolated photons at the Large Hadron Collider has applications in Higgs-boson phenomenology and in new-physics searches. In fact, measurements would provide more insight if a percent-level theoretical prediction were available. We account for next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order strong-interaction effects in the cross section for the first time. This is not only necessary to demonstrate the convergence of perturbation theory, but also results in a reduction of the theoretical uncertainty by a factor of 3 down to 3%. With this, we pave the way to improved analyses.

Jet production at the LHC is a powerful probe of QCD, making it ideal for precision tests and determinations of QCD parameters such as parton distribution functions and the strong coupling constant. To make the most of the abundant jet production data collected at the LHC, precise calculations are required. While state-of-the-art calculations reach next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD accuracy, a critical assessment of the remaining uncertainties arising from non-perturbative effects and missing higher orders remains crucial for correctly interpreting comparisons between theory and data. Scale variation is nearly always used to determine effects from missing higher orders. In this article, we reassess this method in the context of inclusive jet production by performing NNLO QCD calculations supplemented by small-jet-radius resummation through next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy (NNLL). We find that NNLL resummation can have an appreciable impact on the scale uncertainty for inclusive jet cross sections, and, for some scale choices, can lead to sizeable shifts of the central cross section. We conclude that scale variations in fixed-order and resummed calculations can drastically underestimate the impact of higher orders for commonly used jet radius parameters, and that missing higher-order estimates obtained via scale variations should be considered unreliable. Our findings add further evidence to the importance of going beyond scale variations in jet and jet substructure calculations.

We derive two-loop scattering amplitudes for bottom-quark pair production in association with a Higgs boson at the LHC, focusing on terms proportional to the top-quark Yukawa coupling. We treat the bottom quark as a massless parton and employ both the leading-colour and heavy-top-quark approximations. The finite remainder of the two-loop amplitude is expressed in terms of one-mass pentagon functions, and the corresponding rational coefficients are reconstructed analytically from evaluations over finite fields. The scattering processes considered in this work also constitute a subset of Higgs+2-jet production at the LHC in the heavy-top-quark approximation.

The production of a top-quark pair, the heaviest known elementary particle, in association with a light jet is a key process for studying the properties of the standard model of particle physics. Due to its significance as a signal process with considerable sensitivity to the top-quark mass and as a background process for new physics searches, it is crucial to predict differential cross sections with high precision. In this Letter, we present, for the first time, predictions for various kinematical observables at next-to-next-to-leading order in quantum chromodynamics. The perturbative behavior is analyzed, and uncertainties arising from missing higher-order contributions are substantially reduced. The necessary two-loop amplitudes have been evaluated in the leading-color approximation, and we provide estimates for the impact of the missing contributions.

A bstract: In recent years, the complete set of cross sections for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) processes ending with three resolved final states consisting of either photons or jets has been evaluated at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD and leading order in QED. Results for three photons or three jets have only been obtained using the leading-color approximation of the virtual two-loop amplitudes. In the meantime, the required amplitudes have become available without recourse to the color expansion. In the present publication, we quantify the effects of the subleading-color contributions, and show that they do not exceed 2% for most of the previously published results. The one exception is the ratio of three- to two-jet cross sections, where subleading-color effects can reach up to 5%. Furthermore, we show that these conclusions hold for both popular infrared renormalization schemes, i.e. minimal subtraction and a scheme based on Catani’s magic formula for infrared divergences of two-loop amplitudes. The size of the effects is usually overshadowed by the size of the remaining uncertainty due to the truncation of the perturbation series. This is particularly important in the case of three-jet distributions that have already been used for the extraction of the strong-coupling constant at the very high energies available at the LHC.

A bstract: We present a leading colour computation of the double virtual contributions to top-quark pair production in association with a jet at a hadron collider at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The finite remainders of the two-loop amplitudes, after subtraction of infrared and ultraviolet divergences, are extracted analytically from evaluations over finite fields by using a (potentially) overcomplete basis of special functions defined through their differential equations. We construct the colour- and spin-summed interference with the tree-level amplitudes and present a C++ library suitable for immediate use in phenomenological studies. We present new techniques for the evaluation of the special functions through direct numerical integration of differential equations which perform well across the full physical phase space.

We achieve for the first time NNLO QCD + NLO EW accuracy for doubly polarized W Z inclusive production at the LHC, in the case of fully leptonic decays. Additionally, we provide estimates for missing higher-order uncertainties in QCD associated with doubly polarized differential cross sections and joint polarization fractions, obtained both with standard scale variations and with a theory-nuisance-parameter approach. The study is carried out in the fiducial setup of a recent ATLAS analysis of Run-2 data.

A bstract: The production of heavy-flavor hadrons in association with a vector boson in proton-proton collisions is a powerful probe for studying Quantum Chromodynamics and the content of protons. In this article, we provide, for the first time, differential predictions through NNLO for the production of W ^± D ^(∗)∓ final states. The results are compared to recent ATLAS measurements, and the sensitivity to the strange content of the proton is investigated by PDF profiling. The results are found to be promising for including W ^± D ^(∗)∓ measurements in proton-proton collisions in PDF fits.

In recent years, the complete set of cross sections for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) processes ending with three resolved final states consisting of either photons or jets has been evaluated at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD and leading order in QED. Results for three photons or three jets have only been obtained using the leading-color approximation of the virtual two-loop amplitudes. In the meantime, the required amplitudes have become available without recourse to the color expansion. In the present publication, we quantify the effects of the subleading-color contributions, and show that they do not exceed 2\% for most of the previously published results. The one exception is the ratio of three- to two-jet cross sections, where subleading-color effects can reach up to 5\%. Furthermore, we show that these conclusions hold for both popular infrared renormalization schemes, minimal subtraction and Catani's. The size of the effects is usually overshadowed by the size of the remaining uncertainty due to the truncation of the perturbation series. This is particularly important in the case of three-jet distributions that have already been used for the extraction of the strong-coupling constant at the very high energies available at the LHC.

Calculations truncated at a fixed order in perturbation theory are accompanied by an associated theoretical uncertainty, which encodes the missing higher orders (MHOU). This is typically estimated by a scale variation procedure, which has well-known shortcomings. In this work, we propose a simple prescription to directly encode the missing higher order terms using theory nuisance parameters (TNPs) and estimate the uncertainty by their variation. We study multiple processes relevant for Large Hadron Collider physics at next-to-leading and next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbation theory, obtaining MHOU estimates for differential observables in each case. In cases where scale variations are well-behaved we are able to replicate their effects using TNPs, while we find significant improvement in cases where scale variation typically underestimates the uncertainty.