Analytic next-to-leading-order helicity cross sections for vector-boson production at finite transverse momentum
Abstract
We present a complete analytic calculation of the next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD cross sections for the production of an electroweak vector boson (W±, Z/γ*) at finite transverse momentum, decomposed into the full set of helicity cross sections that determine the angular coefficients A0-A7 of the lepton-pair angular distribution in the Collins-Soper frame. The calculation includes the unpolarised cross section and all eight helicity projections for both neutral- and charged-current Drell-Yan production, the axial quark-triangle contributions in the mt→∞ limit and with full top-quark-mass dependence, and closed-form expressions for all coefficient functions. The results are implemented in the DYTurbo program and validated at the level of a few times 10−4 against its numerical implementation derived from MCFM, as well as through the analytic qT→0 limit. The analytic implementation achieves a speed-up of more than five orders of magnitude with respect to the numerical code, enabling fast and numerically stable predictions for precision electroweak measurements at the LHC. The calculation was carried out with extensive use of large language models (Anthropic Claude) as autonomous agents; we document the methodology and the associated computational and token budgets.
Related
- Extraction of transverse-momentum-dependent helicity distributions of the nucleon
- Drell-Yan lepton pair production from low to high transverse momentum
- Effects of in-medium NN inelastic cross sections and the high-momentum tail of nucleon momentum distributions on pion production in heavy-ion collisions
- NNLL fit of the transverse-momentum-dependent distribution of unpolarised gluons to LHCb data on J/ψ-pair production
- Search for supersymmetric particle pair production in final states with two oppositely charged leptons and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV
BibTeX
@misc{camarda2026analytic,
title = {{Analytic next-to-leading-order helicity cross sections for vector-boson production at finite transverse momentum}},
author = {Stefano Camarda and Leandro Cieri and Giancarlo Ferrera and Lorenzo Rossi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.37238},
eprint = {2609.37238},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37238},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Analytic next-to-leading-order helicity cross sections for vector-boson production at finite transverse momentum
AU - Stefano Camarda
AU - Leandro Cieri
AU - Giancarlo Ferrera
AU - Lorenzo Rossi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.37238
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37238
AB - We present a complete analytic calculation of the next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD cross sections for the production of an electroweak vector boson (W^±, Z/γ^*) at finite transverse momentum, decomposed into the full set of helicity cross sections that determine the angular coefficients A_0-A_7 of the lepton-pair angular distribution in the Collins-Soper frame. The calculation includes the unpolarised cross section and all eight helicity projections for both neutral- and charged-current Drell-Yan production, the axial quark-triangle contributions in the m_t→∞ limit and with full top-quark-mass dependence, and closed-form expressions for all coefficient functions. The results are implemented in the DYTurbo program and validated at the level of a few times 10^−4 against its numerical implementation derived from MCFM, as well as through the analytic q_T→0 limit. The analytic implementation achieves a speed-up of more than five orders of magnitude with respect to the numerical code, enabling fast and numerically stable predictions for precision electroweak measurements at the LHC. The calculation was carried out with extensive use of large language models (Anthropic Claude) as autonomous agents; we document the methodology and the associated computational and token budgets.
ER -