PanScales showers for hadron collisions: all-order validation

Abstract

We carry out extensive tests of the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy of the PanScales parton showers, as introduced recently for colour-singlet production in hadron collisions. The tests include comparisons to (semi-)analytic NLL calculations of a wide range of hadron-collider observables: the colour-singlet boson transverse momentum distribution; global and non-global hadronic energy flow variables related to jet vetoes and analogues of jettiness distributions; (sub)jet multiplicities; and observables sensitive to the DGLAP evolution of the incoming momentum fractions. In the tests, we also include an implementation of a standard transverse-momentum ordered dipole shower, to establish the size of missing NLL effects in such showers, which, depending on the observable, can reach $100\%$. This paper, together with arXiv:2205.02237, constitutes the first step towards process-independent NLL-accurate parton showers for hadronic collisions.