Uncertainties in NLO + parton shower matched simulations of inclusive jet and dijet production

Abstract

We quantify uncertainties in the Monte-Carlo simulation of inclusive and dijet final states, which arise from using the MC@NLO technique for matching next-to-leading order parton level calculations and parton showers. We analyse a large variety of data from early measurements at the LHC. In regions of phase space where Sudakov logarithms dominate over high-energy effects, we observe that the main uncertainty can be ascribed to the free parameters of the parton shower. In complementary regions, the main uncertainty stems from the considerable freedom in the simulation of underlying events.