Transverse Mass Distribution and Charge Asymmetry in W Boson Production to Third Order in QCD

Abstract

Charged gauge boson production at hadron colliders is a fundamental benchmark for the extraction of electroweak parameters and the understanding of the proton structure. To enable precision phenomenology for this process, we compute the third-order (N$^3$LO) QCD corrections to the rapidity distribution and charge asymmetry in W boson production and to the transverse mass distribution of its decay products. Our results display substantial QCD corrections in kinematic regions relevant for Tevatron and LHC measurements. We compare the numerical magnitude of the N$^3$LO corrections with uncertainties from electroweak input parameters and quantify their potential impact on the determination of the W boson mass.