Top-Antitop Production and Decay at Threshold at the LHC in QCD Perturbation Theory

Abstract

In this work we consider the production of a top-antitop pair at the LHC when the mass of the pair is relatively near to the nominal threshold, that is to say to twice the top pole mass. In this regime, enhanced perturbative corrections arise that can be computed to all orders in perturbation theory. We present three generators of the NLO+PS kind (Next-to-Leading-Order that can be interfaced to parton showers) that include these threshold enhanced effects. Using these generators we address the following questions: what is the size of enhanced non-relativistic effects that are not already present in the well known NLO and NNLO perturbative results; what is the size of the contribution from these effects that can be loosely attributed to toponium production; and to what extent the finite width of the top quark affects threshold enhanced corrections. Our generators are relevant for the recent observation of enhanced $t{\bar t}$ production near threshold in the pseudoscalar channel by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations.