EW radiative corrections to theory predictions of charge asymmetry for W-boson hadroproduction

Abstract

Abstract The higher-order predictions of the lepton charge asymmetry A η l (the W-boson charge asymmetry A y W ) for the leptonic final state of the W-boson hadroproduction in proton–proton (pp) collisions are presented. The predictions from the state-of-the-art computations are reported for achieving adequate description of the A η l by including next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak (EW) radiative corrections in combination with next-to-NLO (NNLO) quantum chromodynamics (QCD) radiative corrections. The combined predictions NNLO QCD+NLO EW and NNLO QCD × NLO EW, based on standard additive and factorised combination prescriptions in turn, are provided in the fiducial phase space of the pseudorapidity of the decay lepton (of the rapidity of the W-boson), comprising both central and forward detector acceptance regions as η l ≤ 4.5 (y W ≤ 4.5). The inclusion of the NLO EW effects for the A η l ( A y W ) constitutes additional input for the relative u- and d-quark densities in the proton, which is also of high importance in the domain of the high-precision studies. The predicted A η l distributions are compared with the actual measurements by CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at 8 TeV pp collisions energies. The combined predictions for the A η l ( A y W ) distributions are also provided in comparisons with the NNLO QCD predictions at both 13 TeV and 14 TeV energies. The impact of the NLO EW corrections for the A η l ( A y W ) distributions is extensively assessed by means of relative correction factor analysis with respect to the NNLO QCD predictions, in addition to a detailed K-factor analysis with respect to the leading order (LO) accuracy. The predicted results show that the NLO EW effects have larger impact in the forward η l region of the A η l contrary to the central η l region, and is sizable in some of the y W ranges of the A y W . The paper suggests inclusion of the presented EW corrections at NLO to have explicit accounting for the EW effects for the A η l ( A y W ) in phenomenological studies.