Z-boson production in association with a jet at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD

Abstract

We present the first complete calculation of Z-boson production in association with a jet in hadronic collisions through next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. Our computation uses the recently-proposed N-jettiness subtraction scheme to regulate the infrared divergences that appear in the real-emission contributions. We present phenomenological results for 13 TeV proton-proton collisions with fully realistic fiducial cuts on the final-state particles. The remaining theoretical uncertainties after the inclusion of our calculations are at the percent-level, making the Z+jet channel ready for precision studies at the LHC Run II.