https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-08435-4
Regular Article – Theoretical Physics
Defiducialization: providing experimental measurements for accurate fixed-order predictions
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany
Received:
25
January
2020
Accepted:
6
September
2020
Published online:
22
September
2020
An experimental procedure is proposed to perform measurements of differential cross sections for vector boson production which can be compared to fixed-order QCD predictions with improved accuracy. The procedure relies on applying theoretical acceptance corrections computed as a function of the transverse momentum of the W/Z boson, 
, to the experimental measurement, rather than comparing data directly against fiducial fixed-order predictions. It is demonstrated that, contrary to standard fiducial computations, these acceptance factors vary little at low , so they can be reliably computed using fixed-order perturbation theory. An example analysis is performed using the ATLAS measurement of the Z-boson production cross section at center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The resulting full phase space measurement of the cross section differential in the boson rapidity is compared to theoretical predictions computed with next-to-next-to leading-order accuracy in QCD. Further extensions of the approach which include different types of measurements and improved theoretical predictions are discussed.
© The Author(s) 2020
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