Scaling properties of inclusive W${}^{\pm }$ production at hadron colliders

Abstract

We consider the hadroproduction of W gauge bosons in their leptonic decay mode. Starting from the leading-order expressions, we show that by defining a suitable scaling variable the centre-of-mass dependence of the cross sections at the LHC energies can be essentially described by a simple power law. The scaling exponent is directly linked to the small-$x$ behaviour of parton distribution functions (PDF) which, at the high virtualities involved in W production, is largely dictated by QCD evolution equations. This entails a particularly simple scaling law for the lepton charge asymmetry and also predicts that measurements in different collision systems (p-p, p-$\bar{\mathrm{p}}$, p-Pb Pb-Pb) are straightforwardly related. The expectations are compared with the existing data and a very good overall agreement is observed. It is shown that the PDF uncertainty in certain cross-section ratios between nearby centre-of-mass energies can be significantly reduced by taking the ratios at fixed value of scaling variable instead of fixed rapidity.

The version to appear in EPJC, references updated in v3

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• EPPS16: Nuclear parton distributions with LHC data
• Observation of nuclear modifications in W${}^{\pm }$ boson production in pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=$ 8.16 TeV
• Vector boson production in proton-lead and lead-lead collisions at the LHC and its impact on nCTEQ15 PDFs
• Proton-PDF uncertainties in extracting nuclear PDFs from $W^{\pm }$ production in p+Pb collisions
• Understanding forward $B$ hadron production