W-Boson Production in Association with a Jet at Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order in Perturbative QCD

We present the complete calculation of W-boson production in association with a jet in hadronic collisions through next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbative QCD. To cancel infrared divergences, we discuss a new subtraction method that exploits the fact that the N-jettiness event-shape variable fully captures the singularity structure of QCD amplitudes with final-state partons. This method holds for processes with an arbitrary number of jets and is easily implemented into existing frameworks for higher-order calculations. We present initial phenomenological results for W + jet production at the LHC. The NNLO corrections are small and lead to a significantly reduced theoretical error, opening the door to precision measurements in the W + jet channel at the LHC.