We introduce the alaric parton shower for simulating quantum chromodynamics (QCD) radiation at hadron colliders and present numerical results from an implementation in the event generator sherpa. alaric provides a consistent framework to quantify certain systematic uncertainties which cannot be eliminated by comparing the parton shower with analytic resummation. In particular, it allows us to study recoil effects away from the soft and collinear limits without the need to change the evolution variable or the splitting functions. We assess the performance of alaric in Drell-Yan lepton pair and QCD jet production, and present the first multijet merging for the new algorithm.

United States

Stefan Höche

United Kingdom

Frank Krauss

Daniel Reichelt

alaric parton shower for hadron colliders

Sherpa is a general-purpose Monte Carlo event generator for the simulation of particle collisions in high-energy collider experiments. We summarise new developments, essential features, and ongoing improvements within the Sherpa 3 release series. Physics improvements include higher-order electroweak corrections, simulations of photoproduction and hard diffraction at NLO QCD, heavy-flavour matching in NLO multijet merging, spin-polarised cross section calculations, and a new model of colour reconnections. In addition, the modelling of hadronisation, the underlying event and QED effects in both production and decay has been improved, and the overall event generation efficiency has been enhanced.

Germany

Enrico Bothmann

Lois Flower

Christian Gütschow

Mareen Hoppe

Joshua Isaacson

Max Knobbe

Switzerland

Peter Meinzinger

Italy

Davide Napoletano

Poland

Alan Price

CERN

Marek Schönherr

Steffen Schumann

Frank Siegert

Event generation with Sherpa 3

We present the first complete simulation framework for the simulation of jet production in diffractive events at next-to leading order in QCD, matched to the parton shower. We validate the implementation in the SHERPA event generator with data from the H1 and ZEUS experiments for diffractive DIS and diffractive photoproduction. For the latter, we review different models aiming to explain the observed factorisation breaking and we argue that at NLO the direct component must also be suppressed. We provide predictions for diffractive jet production both in DIS and in photoproduction events for the upcoming EIC.

Hard diffraction in SHERPA

We present the first next-to-leading order accurate hadron-level predictions for inclusive QCD and jet observables in photo-production for electron-proton beams at the upcoming electron-ion collider. Our predictions show large <math><mrow><mi>K</mi></mrow></math> factors of about 60% and a dominating real correction.

Hadron-level NLO predictions for QCD observables in photo-production at the Electron-Ion Collider

We present the first complete simulation framework, in the    event generator, for resolved photon interactions at next-to leading order accuracy. It includes photon spectra obtained through the equivalent-photon approximation, parton distribution functions to parametrize the hadronic structure of quasi-real photons, the matching of the parton shower to next-to leading order QCD calculations for resolved photon cross sections, and the modelling of multiple-parton interactions. We validate our framework against a wide range of photo-production data from    and    experiments, observing good overall agreement. We identify important future steps relevant for high-quality simulations at the planned Electron–Ion Collider.

Resolved photons in Sherpa

We present a novel strategy for the simultaneous measurement of Higgs-boson branching ratios into gluons and light quarks at a future lepton collider operating in the Higgs-factory mode. Our method is based on template fits to global event-shape observables, and in particular fractional energy correlations, thereby exploiting differences in the QCD radiation patterns of quarks and gluons. In a constrained fit of the deviations of the light-flavour hadronic Higgs-boson branching ratios from their Standard Model expectations, based on an integrated luminosity of $$5\,\text {ab}^{-1}$$ <math> <mrow> <mn>5</mn> <mspace width="0.166667em"></mspace> <msup> <mtext>ab</mtext> <mrow> <mo>-</mo> <mn>1</mn> </mrow> </msup> </mrow> </math> , we obtain $$68\%$$ <math> <mrow> <mn>68</mn> <mo>%</mo> </mrow> </math> confidence level limits of $$\mu _{gg}=1 \pm 0.05$$ <math> <mrow> <msub> <mi>μ</mi> <mrow> <mi>gg</mi> </mrow> </msub> <mo>=</mo> <mn>1</mn> <mo>±</mo> <mn>0.05</mn> </mrow> </math> and $$\mu _{q\bar{q}}&lt;21$$ <math> <mrow> <msub> <mi>μ</mi> <mrow> <mi>q</mi> <mover> <mrow> <mi>q</mi> </mrow> <mrow> <mo>¯</mo> </mrow> </mover> </mrow> </msub> <mo>&lt;</mo> <mn>21</mn> </mrow> </math> .

Measuring hadronic Higgs boson branching ratios at future lepton colliders

Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory of quarks and gluons, whose interactions can be described by a local SU(3) gauge symmetry with charges called “color quantum numbers”, is reviewed; the goal of this review is to provide advanced Ph.D. students a comprehensive handbook, helpful for their research. When QCD was “discovered” 50 years ago, the idea that quarks could exist, but not be observed, left most physicists unconvinced. Then, with the discovery of charmonium in 1974 and the explanation of its excited states using the Cornell potential, consisting of the sum of a Coulomb-like attraction and a long range linear confining potential, the theory was suddenly widely accepted. This paradigm shift is now referred to as the November revolution. It had been anticipated by the observation of scaling in deep inelastic scattering, and was followed by the discovery of gluons in three-jet events. The parameters of QCD include the running coupling constant, $$\alpha _s(Q^2)$$ <math> <mrow> <msub> <mi>α</mi> <mi>s</mi> </msub> <mrow> <mo>(</mo> <msup> <mi>Q</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup> <mo>)</mo> </mrow> </mrow> </math> , that varies with the energy scale $$Q^2$$ <math> <msup> <mi>Q</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup> </math> characterising the interaction, and six quark masses. QCD cannot be solved analytically, at least not yet, and the large value of $$\alpha _s$$ <math> <msub> <mi>α</mi> <mi>s</mi> </msub> </math> at low momentum transfers limits perturbative calculations to the high-energy region where $$Q^2\gg \varLambda _{{\textrm{QCD}}} ^2\simeq $$ <math> <mrow> <msup> <mi>Q</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup> <mo>≫</mo> <msubsup> <mi>Λ</mi> <mrow> <mtext>QCD</mtext> </mrow> <mn>2</mn> </msubsup> <mo>≃</mo> </mrow> </math> (250 MeV) $$^2$$ <math> <msup> <mrow></mrow> <mn>2</mn> </msup> </math> . Lattice QCD (LQCD), numerical calculations on a discretized space-time lattice, is discussed in detail, the dynamics of the QCD vacuum is visualized, and the expected spectra of mesons and baryons are displayed. Progress in lattice calculations of the structure of nucleons and of quantities related to the phase diagram of dense and hot (or cold) hadronic matter are reviewed. Methods and examples of how to calculate hadronic corrections to weak matrix elements on a lattice are outlined. The wide variety of analytical approximations currently in use, and the accuracy of these approximations, are reviewed. These methods range from the Bethe–Salpeter, Dyson–Schwinger coupled relativistic equations, which are formulated in both Minkowski or Euclidean spaces, to expansions of multi-quark states in a set of basis functions using light-front coordinates, to the AdS/QCD method that imbeds 4-dimensional QCD in a 5-dimensional deSitter space, allowing confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking to be described in a novel way. Models that assume the number of colors is very large, i.e. make use of the large $$N_c$$ <math> <msub> <mi>N</mi> <mi>c</mi> </msub> </math> -limit, give unique insights. Many other techniques that are tailored to specific problems, such as perturbative expansions for high energy scattering or approximate calculations using the operator product expansion are discussed. The very powerful effective field theory techniques that are successful for low energy nuclear systems (chiral effective theory), or for non-relativistic systems involving heavy quarks, or the treatment of gluon exchanges between energetic, collinear partons encountered in jets, are discussed. The spectroscopy of mesons and baryons has played an important historical role in the development of QCD. The famous X,Y,Z states – and the discovery of pentaquarks – have revolutionized hadron spectroscopy; their status and interpretation are reviewed as well as recent progress in the identification of glueballs and hybrids in light-meson spectroscopy. These exotic states add to the spectrum of expected $$q{{\bar{q}}}$$ <math> <mrow> <mi>q</mi> <mover> <mrow> <mi>q</mi> </mrow> <mrow> <mo>¯</mo> </mrow> </mover> </mrow> </math> mesons and qqq baryons. The progress in understanding excitations of light and heavy baryons is discussed. The nucleon as the lightest baryon is discussed extensively, its form factors, its partonic structure and the status of the attempt to determine a three-dimensional picture of the parton distribution. An experimental program to study the phase diagram of QCD at high temperature and density started with fixed target experiments in various laboratories in the second half of the 1980s, and then, in this century, with colliders. QCD thermodynamics at high temperature became accessible to LQCD, and numerical results on chiral and deconfinement transitions and properties of the deconfined and chirally restored form of strongly interacting matter, called the Quark–Gluon Plasma (QGP), have become very precise by now. These results can now be confronted with experimental data that are sensitive to the nature of the phase transition. There is clear evidence that the QGP phase is created. This phase of QCD matter can already be characterized by some properties that indicate, within a temperature range of a few times the pseudocritical temperature, the medium behaves like a near ideal liquid. Experimental observables are presented that demonstrate deconfinement. High and ultrahigh density QCD matter at moderate and low temperatures shows interesting features and new phases that are of astrophysical relevance. They are reviewed here and some of the astrophysical implications are discussed. Perturbative QCD and methods to describe the different aspects of scattering processes are discussed. The primary parton–parton scattering in a collision is calculated in perturbative QCD with increasing complexity. The radiation of soft gluons can spoil the perturbative convergence, this can be cured by resummation techniques, which are also described here. Realistic descriptions of QCD scattering events need to model the cascade of quark and gluon splittings until hadron formation sets in, which is done by parton showers. The full event simulation can be performed with Monte Carlo event generators, which simulate the full chain from the hard interaction to the hadronic final states, including the modelling of non-perturbative components. The contribution of the LEP experiments (and of earlier collider experiments) to the study of jets is reviewed. Correlations between jets and the shape of jets had allowed the collaborations to determine the “color factors” – invariants of the SU(3) color group governing the strength of quark–gluon and gluon–gluon interactions. The calculated jet production rates (using perturbative QCD) are shown to agree precisely with data, for jet energies spanning more than five orders of magnitude. The production of jets recoiling against a vector boson, $$W^\pm $$ <math> <msup> <mi>W</mi> <mo>±</mo> </msup> </math> or Z, is shown to be well understood. The discovery of the Higgs boson was certainly an important milestone in the development of high-energy physics. The couplings of the Higgs boson to massive vector bosons and fermions that have been measured so far support its interpretation as mass-generating boson as predicted by the Standard Model. The study of the Higgs boson recoiling against hadronic jets (without or with heavy flavors) or against vector bosons is also highlighted. Apart from the description of hard interactions taking place at high energies, the understanding of “soft QCD” is also very important. In this respect, Pomeron – and Odderon – exchange, soft and hard diffraction are discussed. Weak decays of quarks and leptons, the quark mixing matrix and the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon are processes which are governed by weak interactions. However, corrections by strong interactions are important, and these are reviewed. As the measured values are incompatible with (most of) the predictions, the question arises: are these discrepancies first hints for New Physics beyond the Standard Model? This volume concludes with a description of future facilities or important upgrades of existing facilities which improve their luminosity by orders of magnitude. The best is yet to come!

Franz Gross

Eberhard Klempt

Stanley Brodsky

Andrzej Buras

Volker Burkert

Gudrun Heinrich

Karl Jakobs

Curtis Meyer

Kostas Orginos

Michael Strickland

Johanna Stachel

Giulia Zanderighi

Nora Brambilla

Peter Braun-Munzinger

Daniel Britzger

Simon Capstick

Tom Cohen

Volker Crede

Martha Constantinou

Christine Davies

Luigi Debbio

Achim Denig

Carleton DeTar

Alexandre Deur

Russia

Latvia

Yuri Dokshitzer

Hans Dosch

Jozef Dudek

Monica Dunford

Evgeny Epelbaum

Spain

Miguel Escobedo

Harald Fritzsch

Japan

Kenji Fukushima

Paolo Gambino

Canada

Sweden

Dag Gillberg

Steven Gottlieb

Per Grafstrom

Massimiliano Grazzini

Boris Grube

JINR

Alexey Guskov

Toru Iijima

Xiangdong Ji

Frithjof Karsch

Stefan Kluth

John Kogut

Shunzo Kumano

Australia

Derek Leinweber

Heinrich Leutwyler

China

Hai-Bo Li

Yang Li

France

Bogdan Malaescu

Chiara Mariotti

Pieter Maris

Simone Marzani

Wally Melnitchouk

Johan Messchendorp

Harvey Meyer

Ryan Mitchell

Chandan Mondal

Frank Nerling

Sebastian Neubert

Marco Pappagallo

Saori Pastore

José Peláez

Andrew Puckett

Jianwei Qiu

Klaus Rabbertz

Alberto Ramos

Patrizia Rossi

Azerbaijan

Anar Rustamov

Andreas Schäfer

Stefan Scherer

Matthias Schindler

Steven Schramm

Mikhail Shifman

Edward Shuryak

Torbjörn Sjöstrand

George Sterman

Iain Stewart

Joachim Stroth

Eric Swanson

Costa Rica

Guy Téramond

Ulrike Thoma

Antonio Vairo

Danny Dyk

James Vary

Javier Virto

Marcel Vos

Christian Weiss

Markus Wobisch

Sau Wu

Christopher Young

Feng Yuan

Xingbo Zhao

Xiaorong Zhou

50 Years of quantum chromodynamics

We present a simple parton-shower model that replaces the explicit angular ordering of the coherent branching formalism with a differentially accurate simulation of soft-gluon radiation by means of a non-trivial dependence of the splitting functions on azimuthal angles. We introduce a global kinematics mapping and provide an analytic proof that it satisfies the criteria for next-to leading logarithmic accuracy. In the new algorithm, initial and final state evolution are treated on the same footing. We provide an implementation for final-state evolution in the numerical code Alaric and present a first comparison to experimental data.

Florian Herren

A new approach to color-coherent parton evolution

We present theoretical results for the sensitivity of charm Yukawa coupling measurements in future high-luminosity LHC runs in three channels: Vector Boson Fusion (VBF), W Higgs-strahlung and Z Higgs-strahlung production of a Higgs boson and its subsequent decay into charm quarks. To reduce the overwhelmingly large backgrounds and to reduce false positives, we apply a set of simple kinematic and jet feature cuts and feed neural network data structures of three types; jet features, jet images and particle level features. To facilitate straightforward comparison with experimental studies [1,2], we express our results in terms of signal strengths [3].

Joseph Walker

Constraining the Charm-Yukawa coupling at the Large Hadron Collider

We constrain CP-violating charged and neutral anomalous triple gauge couplings using LHC measurements and projections of diboson and VBF Vjj production, both with subsequent leptonic decays. For triple gauge couplings involving W bosons we analyse differential asymmetries and interpret our results in the SMEFT at dimension-six. For neutral triple gauge couplings, which are dominantly constrained by high transverse-momentum bins, we present the resulting bounds in terms of a general anomalous couplings framework.

Anke Biekötter

Parisa Gregg

Constraining CP violating operators in charged and neutral triple gauge couplings