2021 Impact factor 4.991
Particles and Fields

Eur. Phys. J. C 16, 311-330
DOI 10.1007/s100520000410

A full next-to-leading order study
of direct photon pair production in hadronic collisions

T. Binoth - J.Ph. Guillet - E. Pilon - M. Werlen

Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique Théorique LAPTH, B.P. 110, 74941 Annecy-le-Vieux Cedex, France

Received: 24 November 1999 / Revised version: 13 March 2000 /
Published online: 8 June 2000 - © Springer-Verlag 2000

Abstract
We discuss the production of photon pairs in hadronic collisions, from fixed target to LHC energies. The study which follows is based on a QCD calculation at full next-to-leading order accuracy, including single and double fragmentation contributions, and implemented in the form of a general purpose computer program of ``partonic event generator'' type. To illustrate the possibilities of this code, we present a comparison with observables measured by the WA70 and D0 collaborations, and some predictions for the irreducible background to the search of Higgs bosons at LHC in the channel $h \rightarrow \gamma \gamma$. We also discuss theoretical scale uncertainties for these predictions, and examine several infrared sensitive situations which deserve further study.


Copyright Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2000

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