Testing parton distribution functions with t-channel single-top-quark production

Abstract

The production of single top-quarks in the t-channel at hadron colliders imposes strong analytic constraints on parton distribution functions (PDFs) through its double deeply inelastic scattering (DDIS) form. We exploit this to provide novel consistency checks between LO, NLO and NNLO PDF fits and propose to include it as a constraint in future PDF fits. Furthermore, while it is well-known that the b-quark PDF is highly sensitive to the b-quark mass, we show that the treatment of this systematic uncertainty is still incomplete, fragmented or outright missing at the moment. Consequently, we conclude that the b-quark mass uncertainty is the dominant but so far broadly neglected theory uncertainty for this process.

6 pages, 4 figures; v2: matches published version in PRD

References in corpus (8)

• LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era
• Quark mass relations to four-loop order
• Measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel cross section in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Heavy-quark mass dependence in global PDF analyses and 3- and 4-flavour parton distributions
• Single-top-quark production in the $t$-channel at NNLO
• An investigation of the ${\alpha }_S$ and heavy quark mass dependence in the MSHT20 global PDF analysis
• Pole mass renormalon and its ramifications
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Event Generators for High-Energy Physics Experiments
• The top quark legacy of the LHC Run II for PDF and SMEFT analyses
• A CT18 global PDF fit at the leading order in QCD
• Les Houches 2023 -- Physics at TeV Colliders: Report on the Standard Model Precision Wishlist
• NLO QCD and EW corrections to off-shell $\mathrm{tZj}$ production at the LHC
• Measurement of $t$-channel single-top-quark production in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=5.02$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Probing $t$-channel single top-quark and antiquark production via differential cross-section measurements at $\sqrt{s}=$\SI{13}{\TeV} with the ATLAS detector
• Measurement of differential $t$-channel single top (anti)quark production cross-sections at 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector