Eur. Phys. J. C 23, 259-266 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100520100868

Comparison of phase space slicing and dipole subtraction methods for γ^* → QQ

¹ NIKHEF Theory Group, Kruislaan 409, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Parma, INFN Gruppo Collegato di Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy

Received: 15 October 2001
Published online: 25 January 2002

Abstract

We compare the phase space slicing and dipole subtraction methods in the computation of the inclusive and differential next-to-leading order cross sections for heavy quark production in the simple process γ^* → QQ. For the phase space slicing method we study the effects of improvement terms that remove restrictions on the slicing parameter s_min. For the dipole method our comparison is a first check on some of its counterterms involving massive quarks, derived recently. In our comparison we address issues such as numerical accuracy and efficiency.