Precise standard-model predictions for polarised Z-boson pair production and decay at the LHC
Providing accurate theoretical predictions in the Standard Model for processes with polarised electroweak bosons is crucial to understand more in-depth the electroweak-symmetry breaking mechanism and to enhance the sensitivity to potential new-physics effects. Motivated by the rapidly increasing number of polarisation analyses of di-boson processes with LHC data, we carry out a comprehensive study of the inclusive production of two polarised Z bosons in the decay channel with four charged leptons. We perform a detailed comparison of fixed-order predictions obtained with various Monte Carlo programs which rely on different signal-definition strategies, assessing non-resonant and interference effects by contrasting polarised results with unpolarised and full off-shell ones. For the first time, we accomplish the combination of NNLO QCD and NLO EW corrections, setting the new state-of-the-art perturbative accuracy for polarised Z-boson pairs at the LHC. The impact of parton-shower matching and multi-jet merging is investigated by scrutinising calculations obtained with event generators that are typically used in experimental analyses. Integrated and differential results are discussed in a realistic fiducial setup and compared to publicly available ATLAS results.
Authors
- Christoph Haitz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7679-552X)
- Olivier Mattelaer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7302-7744)
- R. Coelho Lopes De (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5200-9195)
- Le Duc Ninh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0823-5157)
- Richard Ruíz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3316-2175)
- Marek Schoenherr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2274-6175)
- K. Potamianos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7839-9785)
- R. Covarelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1216-5235)
- F. Siegert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2893-6412)
- Giovanni Pelliccioli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3607-3263)
- M. Javurkova
- René Poncelet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4889-9396)
- Giulia Zanderighi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6878-1649)
- Costanza Carrivale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5899-2149)
- L. Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8997-3199)
- D. Du
- Mareen Hoppe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0429-2792)
- Ansgar Denner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7179-1132)
- Susmita Mondal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8119-2197)
- X. Wu
- G. Ortona (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8411-2971)
- Jakob Linder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1212-5392)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- University of Wisconsin System (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Durham University (GB)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- University of Perugia (IT)
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Max Planck Institute for Physics (DE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino (IT)
- Institute of Particle Physics (CA)
- Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)
- Phenikaa University (VN)
- Institute of Modern Physics (CN)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano Bicocca (IT)
- Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry (DE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Perugia (IT)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Turin (IT)
- University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- UCLouvain (BE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The European Physical Journal C
- Published
- 2025-11-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-15069-x
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.48
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- UK Research and Innovation
- Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center
- Durham University
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme
- Science and Technology Facilities Council