https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14194-x
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Factorisation schemes for proton PDFs
1
Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 31-342, Kraków, Poland
2
Institute of Physics, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland
3
Jagiellonian University, ul. prof. Stanislawa Łojasiewicza 11, 30-348, Kraków, Poland
4
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
Received:
13
February
2025
Accepted:
14
April
2025
Published online:
8
May
2025
Beyond leading-order, perturbative QCD requires a choice of factorisation scheme to define the parton distribution functions (PDFs) and hard-process cross-section. The modified minimal-subtraction (
) scheme has long been adopted as the default choice due to its simplicity. Alternative schemes have been proposed with specific purposes, including, recently, PDF positivity and NLO parton-shower matching. In this paper we assemble these schemes in a common notation for the first time. We perform a detailed comparison of their features, both analytically and numerically, and estimate the resulting factorisation-scheme uncertainty for LHC phenomenology.
© The Author(s) 2025
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