QCD predictions for vector boson plus hadron production at the LHC

A bstract The identification of a hadron in the final state of hadron-collider events that feature a leptonically decaying vector boson can provide essential information on the parton content of the colliding protons. Moreover, the study of hadrons inside jets can provide deeper insights into the fragmentation dynamics. We provide theoretical predictions for specific observables involving either the production of a Z boson in association with light charged hadrons inside a jet or the production of a W boson together with a charmed hadron. We present results for various fragmentation functions and compare our predictions with measurements by LHCb and ATLAS at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msqrt> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msqrt> </mml:math> = 13 TeV. Our predictions are obtained using the antenna subtraction formalism which has been extended to cope with infrared singularities associated to the fragmentation processes in a hadron-collider environment at NLO accuracy.