2025/12/20 by Leon Mans, Mans, Leon, Daniel Stremmer +3
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics and Python Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.18391
openalex publication_date 2025/12/20 · openalex created_date 2025/12/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present the calculation of the complete NLO corrections to the off-shell top-quark pair production in the ℓ+j decay channel, denoted as pp → ℓ- νl jb jb jj + X, where ℓ- = e-, μ-. The calculation consistently preserves the finite-width effects of the top quarks and massive gauge bosons, as well as takes into account all doubly-, singly-, and non-resonant contributions along with their interference effects. All Born-level contributions, at the perturbative orders from \cal O(αs4α2) to \cal O(αs0α6), are included and corrected by both NLO QCD and NLO EW effects. Furthermore, all possible partonic initial states are taken into account. Particular attention is paid to the infrared safety in the presence of photons and jets. This requires the use of the so-called parton-to-photon fragmentation function and the photon-to-jet conversion function, which makes the democratic photon-parton clustering and the γ→ qq splittings finite. We present our findings at the integrated and differential fiducial cross-section levels for the LHC Run III centre-of-mass energy of √(s)= 13.6 TeV. In addition, we quantify the impact of subleading NLO effects, in particular, electroweak Sudakov logarithms and non-resonant QCD backgrounds. Two analysis strategies are employed and compared, namely with and without the resonance-enhancing requirement on the invariant mass of the two light jets, |Mjj-mW|<\cal Qcut = 20 GeV, illustrating the relationship between QCD background suppression, off-shell effects, interferences, and complete NLO corrections.