arXiv:1803.04336
DESY 18-024
CP3-18-16
NIKHEF/2018-008
TIF-UNIMI 2018-2
DESY-18-024
NIKHEF-2018-008
TIF-UNIMI-2018-2
JHEP 1807 (2018) 101

by: Bagnaschi, Emanuele (DESY) et al.

Abstract:
We perform a study of lepton-pair production in association with bottom quarks at the LHC based on the predictions obtained at next-to-leading order in QCD, both at fixed order and matched with a QCD parton shower. We consider a comprehensive set of observables and estimate the associated theoretical uncertainties by studying the dependence on the perturbative QCD scales (renormalisation, factorisation and shower) and by comparing different parton-shower models (Pythia8 and Herwig++) and matching schemes (MC@NLO and POWHEG). Based on these results, we propose a simple procedure to include bottom-quark effects in neutral-current Drell-Yan production, going beyond the standard massless approximation. Focusing on the inclusive lepton-pair transverse-momentum distribution ${p}_{\perp}^{\ell^{+}\ell -}$ , we quantify the impact of such effects on the tuning of the simulation of charged-current Drell-Yan observables and the W-boson mass determination.