Parton distribution benchmarking with LHC data

• DOI: 10.1007/jhep04(2013)125
• Publication Date: 2013-04-23T03:14:08Z
• Authors: Richard D. Ball; Stefano Carrazza; Luigi Del Debbio; Stefano Forte; Jun Gao; Nathan Hartland; Joey Huston; Pavel Nadolsky; Juan Rojo; Daniel Stump; Robert S. Thorne; C.-P. Yuan
• Keywords: Nuclear and High Energy Physics; nucl-th; Nuclear Theory; hep-ex; FOS: Physical sciences; Deep inelastic scattering (Phenomenology); hep-ph; QCD Phenomenology; nucl-ex; 01 natural sciences; High Energy Physics - Experiment; Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology; High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals; High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); 0103 physical sciences; Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex); Nuclear Experiment

AbstractWe present a detailed comparison of the most recent sets of NNLO PDFs from the ABM, CT, HERAPDF, MSTW and NNPDF collaborations. We compare parton distributions at low and high scales and parton luminosities relevant for LHC phenomenology. We study the PDF dependence of LHC benchmark inclusive cross sections and differential distributions for electroweak boson and jet production in the cases in which the experimental covariance matrix is available. We quantify the agreement between data and theory by computing theχ2for each data set with all the various PDFs. PDF comparisons are performed consistently for common values of the strong coupling. We also present a benchmark comparison of jet production at the LHC, comparing the results from various available codes and scale settings. Finally, we discuss the implications of the updated NNLO PDF sets for the combined PDF+αsuncertainty in the gluon fusion Higgs production cross section.