Top-pair production at the LHC with MINNLOPS

We consider the production of a pair of heavy quarks and illustrate the derivation of the MINNLOPS method to match next-to-next-to-leading order calculations with parton showers (NNLO+PS) for this class of processes. As a first application, we construct an event generator for the fully differential simulation of hadronic top-quark pair production at NNLO+PS and discuss all details of its implementation in a parton shower Monte Carlo framework. We present new phenomenological results for the Large Hadron Collider obtained by including the tree-level decays of the top quarks, while accounting for spin-correlation effects. A comprehensive comparison to LHC measurements shows an excellent description of experimental data across multiple hadronic and leptonic particle-level observables. The computer code is available for download within the POWHEG-BOX.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the production of a pair of heavy quarks and introduces the MINNLOPS method to match NNLO calculations with parton showers. An event generator is constructed and its implementation details in a parton shower Monte Carlo framework are discussed. The results show that including the tree-level decays of the top quarks and spin-correlation effects, the simulated data fit well with the experimental measurements.