Radiative corrections to $W$-boson hadroproduction: Higher-order electroweak and supersymmetric effects

The high accuracy envisaged for future measurements of $W$-boson production at hadron colliders has to be matched by precise theoretical predictions. We study the impact of electroweak radiative corrections on $W$-boson production cross sections and differential distributions at the Tevatron and at the LHC. In particular, we include photon-induced processes, which contribute at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha )$, and leading radiative corrections beyond $\mathcal{O}(\alpha )$ in the high-energy Sudakov regime and from multiphoton final-state radiation. We furthermore present the calculation of the complete supersymmetric next-to-leading-order electroweak and QCD corrections to $W$-boson hadroproduction within the minimal supersymmetric standard model. The supersymmetric corrections turn out to be negligible in the vicinity of the $W$ resonance in general, reaching the percent level only at high lepton transverse momentum and for specific choices of the supersymmetric parameters.

Figure 1

Lepton-transverse-momentum distribution in LO and corresponding relative corrections $\delta$ at the LHC in the SM.

Figure 2

$W$-transverse-mass distribution in LO and corresponding relative corrections $\delta$ at the LHC in the SM.

Figure 3

Lepton-transverse-momentum distribution in LO and corresponding relative corrections $\delta$ at the Tevatron in the SM.

Figure 4

$W$-transverse-mass distribution in LO and corresponding relative corrections $\delta$ at the Tevatron in the SM.

Figure 5

Comparison of multiphoton corrections as obtained in this work with results of Horace [1, 15] (see text for details).

Figure 6

Classes of diagrams for the additional vertex corrections within the MSSM. The neutralinos ${\tilde{\chi }}^0$, charginos $\tilde{\chi }$, squarks $\tilde{q}(q=\mathrm{u},\mathrm{d})$, and sleptons $\tilde{l}$ represent the different possible mass eigenstates.

Figure 7

Classes of diagrams for the additional box corrections within the MSSM. The neutralinos ${\tilde{\chi }}^0$, charginos $\tilde{\chi }$, squarks $\tilde{q}(q=\mathrm{u},\mathrm{d})$, and sleptons $\tilde{l}$ represent the different possible mass eigenstates.

Figure 8

Total partonic LO cross section ${\widehat{\sigma }}_0$ and corresponding relative SUSY-EW and SUSY-QCD corrections $\delta$ as function of the partonic CM energy $\sqrt{\widehat{s}}$ for the different SPS scenarios.

Figure 9

Lepton-transverse-momentum distribution in LO and corresponding relative SUSY-EW and SUSY-QCD corrections $\delta$ for the different SPS scenarios at the LHC.

Figure 10

Lepton-transverse-momentum distribution in LO and corresponding relative SUSY-EW and SUSY-QCD corrections $\delta$ for the different SPS scenarios at the Tevatron.