Matching NLO QCD computations and parton shower simulations
Abstract
We propose a method for matching the next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation of a given QCD process with a parton shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. The method has the following features: fully exclusive events are generated, with hadronization according to the MC model; total exclusive rates are accurate to NLO; NLO results for distributions are recovered upon expansion in αS; hard emissions are treated as in NLO computations while soft/collinear emissions are handled by the MC simulation, with the same logarithmic accuracy as the MC; and matching between the hard- and soft/collinear-emission regions is smooth. A fraction of events with negative weight is generated, but unweighting remains possible with reasonable efficiency. The method is clarified using a simple toy model, and illustrated by application to the hadroproduction of W+W- pairs.
Turn this paper into a full lesson
ArcXiv compiles a staged curriculum from this paper: 8-12 lessons across beginner → advanced, synthesised section guides, visuals, flashcards, a quiz, exercises, and on-demand deep dives per section. Grounded in the abstract, never invented.