How much joint resummation do we need?

Abstract

Abstract Large logarithms that arise in cross sections due to the collinear and soft singularities of QCD are traditionally treated using parton showers or analytic resummation. Parton showers provide a fully-differential description of an event but are challenging to extend beyond leading logarithmic accuracy. On the other hand, resummation calculations can achieve higher logarithmic accuracy but often for only a single observable. Recently, there have been many resummation calculations that jointly resum multiple logarithms. Here we investigate the benefits and limitations of joint resummation in a case study, focussing on the family of e + e − event shapes called angularities. We calculate the cross section differential in n angularities at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We investigate whether reweighing a flat phase-space generator to this resummed prediction, or the corresponding distributions from Herwig and Pythia, leads to improved predictions for other angularities. We find an order of magnitude improvement for n = 2 over n = 1, highlighting the benefit of joint resummation, but diminishing returns for larger values of n.