Systematics of collective correlation energies from self-consistent mean-field calculations

We study nucleon-nucleon scattering on the lattice at next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory. We determine phase shifts and mixing angles from the properties of two-nucleon standing waves induced by a hard spherical wall in the center-of-mass frame. At fixed lattice spacing we test model independence of the low-energy effective theory by computing next-to-leading-order corrections for two different leading-order lattice actions. The first leading-order action includes instantaneous one-pion exchange and same-site contact interactions. The second leading-order action includes instantaneous one-pion exchange and Gaussian-smeared interactions. We find that in each case the results at next-to-leading order are accurate up to corrections expected at higher order.     

Hard photon next-to-leading corrections to two-fermion production in e + e − collisions above the Z 0 peak

A complete next-to-leading order calculation of the initial-state O (α) photonic corrections to hadron and lepton-pair production in e ⁺ e ^?. collisions is presented. The impact of the next-to-leading order corrections on the twofermion cross section and forward-backward asymmetry is studied in detail for several event selections, with special emphasis on hard photon effects at LEP1.5 and LEP2 energies. It is shown that for typical realistic event selections, initial-state next-to-leading order corrections in the soft approximation can be safely extrapolated to energies above the Z ⁰ peak without significant loss of precision.     

Top-quark partial compositeness beyond the effective field theory paradigm

We compute next-to-leading order virtual two-loop corrections to the process gg → Z Z in the low- and high-energy limits, considering the contributions with virtual top quarks. Analytic results for all 20 form factors are presented including expansion terms up to $$ 1/{m}_t^{12} $$ and $$ {m}_t^{32} $$. We use a Padé approximation procedure to extend the radius of convergence of the high-energy expansion and apply this approach to the finite virtual next-to-leading order corrections.     

Large-x resummation in Q2 evolution

The standard analytic solution to the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi equation in Mellin space is improved by resumming the large-x divergences. Explicit results are given to next-to-leading order and next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, which significantly reduce the parton density functions' theoretical uncertainties, more than the inclusion of next-to-next-to-leading order corrections in some cases, and is, therefore, of paramount importance for the reliable interpretation of ongoing and future experiments with hadron beams or targets, including those at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.     

Hadronic top-quark pair production in association with a hard jet at next-to-leading order QCD: phenomenological studies for the Tevatron and the LHC

We report on the calculation of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of top–antitop-quark pairs in association with a hard jet at the Tevatron and at the LHC. Results for integrated and differential cross sections are presented. We find a significant reduction of the scale dependence. In most cases the corrections are below 20% indicating that the perturbative expansion is well under control. Moreover, the forward–backward charge asymmetry of the top quark, which is analyzed at the Tevatron, is studied at next-to-leading order. We find large corrections, suggesting that the definition of the observable has to be refined.     

Meson Effects on the Chiral Condensate at Finite Density

Meson corrections on the chiral condensate up to next-to-leading order in a 1/Nc expansion at finite densityare investigated in the NJL model with explicit chiral symmetry breaking. Compared with mean-field results, the chiralphase transition is still of the first order while the properties near the critical density for chiral phase transition are foundto change significantly.     

Strong and electroweak corrections to the production of a Higgs boson+2 jets via weak interactions at the Large Hadron Collider

Radiative corrections of strong and electroweak interactions are presented at next-to-leading order for the production of a Higgs boson plus two hard jets via weak interactions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The calculation includes all weak-boson fusion and quark-antiquark annihilation diagrams as well as the corresponding interferences. The electroweak corrections, which are discussed here for the first time, reduce the cross sections by 5% and thus are of the same order of magnitude as the QCD corrections.     

Meson Effects on the Chiral Condensate at Finite Density

Meson corrections on the chiral condensate up to next-to-leading order in a 1/N_c expansion at finite density are investigated in the NJL model with explicit chiral symmetry breaking. Compared with mean-field results, the chiral phase transition is still of the first order while the properties near the critical density for chiral phase transition are found to change significantly.     

Extracting the top-quark running mass using $$t\bar{t} + \hbox {1-jet}$$ events produced at the Large Hadron Collider

We present the calculation of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections for top-quark pair production in association with an additional jet at hadron colliders, using the modified minimal subtraction scheme to renormalize the top-quark mass. The results are compared to measurements at the Large Hadron Collider run I. In particular, we determine the top-quark running mass from a fit of the theoretical results presented here to the LHC data.     

Gluino-pair production at the Tevatron

The next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of gluino pairs at the Tevatron are presented in this paper. Similar to the production of squark-antisquark pairs, the dependence of the cross section on the renormalization/factorization scale is reduced considerably by including the higher-order corrections. The cross section increases with respect to the lowest-order calculation which, in previous experimental analyses, had been evaluated at the scale of the invariant energy of the partonic subprocesses.     

D~*Dρ and B~*Bρ strong couplings in light-cone sum rules

We present an improved calculation of the strong coupling constants g_(D~*Dp) and g_(B~*Bp) in light-cone sum rules, including one-loop QCD corrections of leading power with meson distribution amplitudes. We further compute subleading-power corrections from two-particle and three-particle higher-twist contributions at leading order up to twist-4 accuracy. The next-to-leading order corrections to the leading power contribution numerically offset the subleading-power corrections to a certain extent, and our numerical results are consistent with those of previous studies on sum rules. A comparison between our results and existing model-dependent estimations is also made.     

Can symmetry non-restoration solve the monopole problem?

We reexamine a recently proposed non-inflationary solution to the monopole problem, based on the possibility that spontaneously broken Grand-Unified symmetries do not get restored at high temperature. We go beyond leading order by studying the self-consistent one-loop equations of the model. We find large next-to-leading corrections that reverse the lowest order results and cause symmetry restoration at high temperature.     

Four jet event shapes in electron-positron annihilation

We report next-to-leading order perturbative QCD predictions of 4 jet event shape variables for the process obtained using the general purpose Monte Carlo EERAD2. This program is based on the known `squared' one loop matrix elements for the virtual parton contribution and squared matrix elements for 5 parton production. To combine the two distinct final states numerically we present a hybrid of the commonly used subtraction and slicing schemes based on the colour antenna structure of the final state which can be readily applied to other processes. We have checked that the numerical results obtained with EERAD2 are consistent with next-to-leading order estimates of the distributions of previously determined four jet-like event variables. We also report the next-to-leading order scale independent coefficients for some previously uncalculated observables; the light hemisphere mass, narrow jet broadening and the 4 jet transition variables with respect to the JADE and Geneva jet finding algorithms. For each of these observables, the next-to-leading order corrections calculated at the physical scale significantly increase the rate compared to leading order (the K factor is approximately 1.5–2). With the exception of the 4 jet transition variables, the published DELPHI data lies well above the predictions. The renormalisation scale uncertainty is still large and in most cases the data prefers a scale significantly smaller than the physical scale. This situation is reminiscent of that for three jet shape variables, and should be improved by the inclusion of power corrections and resummation of large infrared logarithms. Received: 17 November 1998 / Revised version: 26 January 1999 / Published online: 7 April 1999     

Deep inelastic scattering with a tagged photon: QED corrections for the \Sigma method

After a brief review of the kinematics of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) within the so-called method, we derive the necessary formulae for the treatment of QED radiative corrections to DIS originating from hard photon radiation. The results are applied to a calculation of the corrections to DIS with a tagged photon with next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy under HERA conditions. It turns out that the next-to-leading logarithmic corrections are quite important for the method. We also discuss the dependence of the corrections on the longitudinal structure function of the proton, , in the region of low and moderate x.     

QCD corrections to J/psi and Upsilon production at hadron colliders

We calculate the cross section for hadroproduction of a pair of heavy quarks in a (3)S(1) color-singlet state at next-to-leading order in QCD. This corresponds to the leading contribution in the nonrelativistic QCD expansion for J/psi and Upsilon production. The higher-order corrections have a large impact on the p(T) distributions, enhancing the production at high p(T) at both the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The total decay rate of a (3)S(1) into hadrons at next-to-leading order is also computed, confirming for the first time the result obtained by Mackenzie and Lepage in 1981.     

Two-loop QCD corrections to the longitudinal structure function

We calculate the fourth-order corrections to the longitudinal Wilson coefficient in deep inelastic scattering (for the non-singlet case). We use off-mass-shell states to control collinear singularities. A table of numerical results is presented for different numbers of quark flavours, and from these results we obtain the total next-to-leading order contributions to the moments of the longitudinal structure function.     

Connection between perturbation theory and lattice QCD

The problems associated with comparing perturbation theory and lattice Monte Carlo techniques when applied to QCD matter at zero net baryon number are discussed. In particular, the importance of next-to-leading order corrections to optimising the magnitude of the leading corrections to the equation of state and screening lenghts is emphasised.     

W production at large transverse momentum at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We study the production of W bosons at large transverse momentum in pp collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We calculate the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to the differential cross section. We find that the NLO corrections provide a large increase to the cross section but, surprisingly, do not reduce the scale dependence relative to leading order (LO). We also calculate next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) soft-gluon corrections and find that, although they are small, they significantly reduce the scale dependence thus providing a more stable result.     

Higgs-boson production with one bottom-quark jet at hadron colliders

We present total rates and kinematic distributions for the associated production of a single bottom quark and a Higgs boson at the Fermilab Tevatron and CERN Large Hardon Collider. We include next-to-leading order QCD corrections and compare the results obtained in the four and five flavor number schemes for parton distribution functions.     

Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to spin-dependent hadron-pair photoproduction

We compute the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the “direct” part of the spin-dependent cross section for hadron-pair photoproduction. The calculation is performed using largely analytical methods. We present a brief phenomenological study of our results, focusing on the K-factors and scale dependence of the next-to-leading order cross sections. This process is relevant for the extraction of the gluon polarization in present and future spin-dependent lepton–nucleon scattering experiments. PACS  13.88.+e; 12.38.Bx; 13.85.Ni