Collinearity approximations and kinematic shifts in partonic shower algorithms

Abstract

We study kinematic effects due to the approximation of on-shell, collinear partons in shower Monte Carlo event generators. We observe that the collinearity approximation, combined with the requirements of energy-momentum conservation, gives rise to a kinematic shift, event by event, in longitudinal momentum distributions. We present numerical results in the case of jet and heavy flavor production processes measured at the LHC.