Electroweak gauge boson production at hadron colliders through $\mathcal{O}({\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{s}^{2})$

Electroweak gauge boson production at hadron colliders through $O (α_{s}^{2})$

Kirill Melnikov and Frank Petriello

Phys. Rev. D 74, 114017 – Published 18 December 2006

Abstract

We describe a calculation of the $O (α_{s}^{2})$ QCD corrections to the fully differential cross section for $W$ and $Z$ boson production in hadronic collisions. The result is fully realistic in that it includes spin correlations, finite width effects, $γ - Z$ interference and allows for the application of arbitrary cuts on the leptonic decay products of the $W$ and $Z$ . We have implemented this calculation into a numerical program. We demonstrate the use of this code by presenting phenomenological results for several future LHC analyses and recent Tevatron measurements, including the $W$ cross section in the forward rapidity region and the central over forward cross section ratio.