A. Huss

The NNLO QCD corrections to Z boson production at large transverse momentum

A bstractThe transverse momentum distribution of massive neutral vector bosons can be measured to high accuracy at hadron colliders. The transverse momentum is caused by a partonic recoil, and is determined by QCD dynamics. We compute the single and double-differential transverse momentum distributions for fully inclusive Z/γ∗ production including leptonic decay to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbative QCD. We also compute the same distributions normalised to the cross sections for inclusive Z/γ∗ production, i.e. integrated over the transverse momentum of the lepton pair. We compare our predictions for the fiducial cross sections to the 8 TeV data set from the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, which both observed a tension between data and NLO theory predictions, using the experimental cuts and binning. We find that the inclusion of the NNLO QCD effects does not fully resolve the tension with the data for the unnormalised pTZ distribution. However, we observe that normalising the NNLO Z-boson transverse momentum distribution by the NNLO Drell-Yan cross section substantially improves the agreement between experimental data and theory, and opens the way for precision QCD studies of this observable.

Precise predictions for V+ jets dark matter backgrounds

High-energy jets recoiling against missing transverse energy (MET) are powerful probes of dark matter at the LHC. Searches based on large MET signatures require a precise control of the

Precise predictions for V+jets dark matter backgrounds. V + jets dark matter backgrounds

Z(nu {bar{nu }})+

p_{\rm T}

Z(νν¯)+xa0jet background in the signal region. This can be achieved by taking accurate data in control regions dominated by

NNLO QCD corrections for Drell-Yan pTZ and ϕη∗ observables at the LHC

Z(ell ^+ell ^-)+

Precise predictions for the angular coefficients in Z-boson production at the LHC

Z(ℓ+ℓ-)+xa0jet,