https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14027-x
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Status of QCD precision predictions for Drell–Yan rapidity distributions
1
II. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761, Hamburg, Germany
2
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607, Hamburg, Germany
3
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
4
Physik Institut, Universität Zürich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland
5
Department of Experimental Physics, Institute of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Debrecen, PO Box 105, 4010, Debrecen, Hungary
6
Institute for Theoretical Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter 1/A, 1117, Budapest, Hungary
7
Institute for Theoretical Physics Amsterdam and Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
8
Nikhef, Theory Group, Science Park 105, 1098 XG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 60208, Evanston, IL, USA
10
HEP Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 60439, Argonne, IL, USA
11
Dipartimento di Fisica G. Occhialini, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and INFN, Sezione di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza, 3, 20126, Milan, Italy
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Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Boltzmannstraße 8, 85748, Garching, Germany
Received:
3
July
2024
Accepted:
1
March
2025
Published online:
10
April
2025
We compute differential distributions for Drell–Yan processes at the LHC and the Tevatron colliders at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD, including fiducial cuts on the decay leptons in the final state. The comparison of predictions obtained with four different codes shows excellent agreement, once linear power corrections from the fiducial cuts are included in those codes that rely on phase-space slicing subtraction schemes. For Z-boson production we perform a detailed study of the symmetric cuts on the transverse momenta of the decay leptons. Predictions at fixed order in perturbative QCD for those symmetric cuts, typically imposed in experiments, suffer from an instability. We show how this can be remedied by an all-order resummation of the fiducial transverse momentum spectrum, and we comment on the choice of cuts for future experimental analyses.
© The Author(s) 2025
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