Improved formulation of global QCD analysis with zero-mass hard cross sections

Abstract

The zero-mass (ZM) parton formalism is widely used in high-energy physics because of its simplicity and historical importance, even while massive quarks (c,b,t) are playing an increasingly prominent role in particle phenomenology, including global QCD analyses of parton distributions based on the more precise general-mass (GM) QCD formalism. In view of this dichotomy, we show how the obvious inconsistencies of the conventional implementation of the ZM formalism can be corrected, while preserving the simplicity of its matrix elements. The resulting intermediate mass (IM) scheme for perturbative QCD calculation can be considered either as improved ZM formulation with realistic treatment of heavy-flavor kinematics; or as a simplified GM formulation with approximate ZM hard cross sections. Phenomenologically, global analyses based on IM calculations can effectively reproduce, within the present estimated uncertainty bands, the more correct GM results on parton distributions, as well as their predictions for a wide range of collider processes of current interest.

21 pages, 8 figures; journal version with two references added

References in corpus (38)

• Parton distributions for the LHC
• New Generation of Parton Distributions with Uncertainties from Global QCD Analysis
• Global QCD Analysis of Parton Structure of the Nucleon: CTEQ5 Parton Distributions
• Implications of CTEQ global analysis for collider observables
• High-precision QCD at hadron colliders: electroweak gauge boson rapidity distributions at NNLO
• Inclusive Jet Production, Parton Distributions, and the Search for New Physics
• Leptoproduction of Heavy Quarks II -- A Unified QCD Formulation of Charged and Neutral Current Processes from Fixed-target to Collider Energies
• The third-order QCD corrections to deep-inelastic scattering by photon exchange
• QCD Effects in Higgs Physics
• Dilepton rapidity distribution in the Drell-Yan process at NNLO in QCD
• Hard-scattering factorization with heavy quarks: A general treatment
• AKK Update: Improvements from New Theoretical Input and Experimental Data
• Charm electroproduction viewed in the variable-flavour number scheme versus fixed-order perturbation theory
• A determination of parton distributions with faithful uncertainty estimation
• Precise Measurement of Dimuon Production Cross-Sections in muon neutrino Fe and muon antineutrino Fe Deep Inelastic Scattering at the Tevatron
• Measurement and QCD Analysis of Neutral and Charged Current Cross Sections at HERA
• Charmed-Meson Fragmentation Functions with Finite-Mass Corrections
• Parton distributions from deep-inelastic-scattering data
• Open Heavy Flavor Production in QCD -- Conceptual Framework and Implementation Issues
• Rates for Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Electroproduction of Charm Quarks at HERA
• CTEQ6 Parton Distributions with Heavy Quark Mass Effects
• Heavy Quark Mass Effects in Deep Inelastic Scattering and Global QCD Analysis
• Measurement of D*+- production and the charm contribution to F_2 in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
• Non--Singlet QCD Analysis of Deep Inelastic World Data at \boldmath $O({\alpha }_s^3)$
• Heavy-quark correlations in deep-inelastic electroproduction
• An improved global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions including RHIC data
• HIGLU: A Program for the Calculation of the Total Higgs Production Cross Section at Hadron Colliders via Gluon Fusion including QCD Corrections
• An NLO QCD analysis of inclusive cross-section and jet-production data from the ZEUS experiment
• The Gluonic Operator Matrix Elements at O(α_s^2) for DIS Heavy Flavor Production
• Measurement of F_2^ccbar and F_2^bbbar at High Q^2 using the H1 Vertex Detector at HERA
• Measurement of D^(*+-) Meson Production and F_2^c in Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA
• Measurement of F_2^{c\bar{c}} and F_2^{b\bar{b}} at Low Q^2 and x using the H1 Vertex Detector at HERA
• Measurement of D*+- production in deep inelastic ep scattering at HERA
• Fixed target Drell-Yan data and NNLO QCD fits of parton distribution functions
• Soft Supersymmetry Breaking, Scalar Top-Charm Mixing and Higgs Signatures
• PQCD Formulations with Heavy Quark Masses and Global Analysis
• Resummation of transverse momentum and mass logarithms in DIS heavy-quark production
• HERA Combined Cross Sections and Parton Densities

Cited by in corpus (25)

• The CT10 NNLO Global Analysis of QCD
• Impact of Heavy Quark Masses on Parton Distributions and LHC Phenomenology
• Heavy quarks in deep-inelastic scattering
• Parton Distributions for LHC
• The 3-, 4-, and 5-flavor NNLO Parton from Deep-Inelastic-Scattering Data and at Hadron Colliders
• The Structure of the Proton in the LHC Precision Era
• Precision determination of electroweak parameters and the strange content of the proton from neutrino deep-inelastic scattering
• Effect of changes of variable flavor number scheme on parton distribution functions and predicted cross sections
• Measurement of the Charm and Beauty Structure Functions using the H1 Vertex Detector at HERA
• General-mass treatment for deep inelastic scattering at two-loop accuracy
• Intrinsic charm in a matched general-mass scheme
• Deviations from NLO QCD evolution in inclusive HERA data
• Variable Flavor Number Parton Distributions and Weak Gauge and Higgs Boson Production at Hadron Colliders at NNLO of QCD
• Parton Distribution Functions of Heavy Mesons on the Light Front
• Structure Functions
• Nuclear PDFs After the First Decade of LHC Data
• Charm quark mass dependence in a global QCD analysis
• Quark mass effects in high energy neutrino nucleon scattering
• Heavy-flavor parton distributions without heavy-flavor matching prescriptions
• A Hybrid Scheme for Heavy Flavors: Merging the FFNS and VFNS
• Gauge invariance and kaon production in deep inelastic scattering at low scales
• An FONLL prescription with coexisting flavor number PDFs
• Global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions at leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD
• The Effect of Variable Flavour Number Scheme Variations on PDFs and Cross Sections
• Collinear Factorization at sub-asymptotic kinematics and validation in a diquark spectator model