Hunting BFKL in semi-hard reactions at the LHC

The agreement between calculations inspired by the resummation of energy logarithms, known as BFKL approach, and experimental data in the semi-hard sector of QCD has become manifest after a wealthy series of phenomenological analyses. However, the contingency that the same data could be concurrently portrayed at the hand of fixed-order, DGLAP-based calculations, has been pointed out recently, but not yet punctually addressed. Taking advantage of the richness of configurations gained by combining the acceptances of CMS and CASTOR detectors, we give results in the full next-to-leading logarithmic approximation of cross sections, azimuthal correlations and azimuthal distributions for three distinct semi-hard processes, each of them featuring a peculiar final-state exclusiveness. Then, making use of disjoint intervals for the transverse momenta of the emitted objects, i.e. kappa -windows, we clearly highlight how high-energy resummed and fixed-order driven predictions for semi-hard sensitive observables can be decisively discriminated in the kinematic ranges typical of current and forthcoming analyses at the LHC. The scale-optimization issue is also introduced and explored, while the uncertainty coming from the use of different PDF and FF set is deservedly handled. Finally, a brief overview of JETHAD, a numerical tool recently developed, suited for the computation of inclusive semi-hard reactions is provided.

Automated summary

The study compares the BFKL approach with the DGLAP-based calculations in their consistency with experimental data in the semi-hard sector of QCD. By analyzing three different semi-hard processes, it demonstrates how the predictions of high-energy resummed and fixed-order driven approaches can be decisively discriminated in the typical kinematic ranges of LHC analyses.