NLO predictions for the production of a spin-two particle at the LHC

We obtain predictions accurate at the next-to-leading order in QCD for the production of a generic spin-two particle in the most relevant channels at the LHC: production in association with coloured particles (inclusive, one jet, two jets and t (t) over bar), with vector bosons (Z, W-+/-, gamma) and with the Higgs boson. We present total and differential cross sections as well as branching ratios as a function of the mass and the collision energy also considering the case of non-universal couplings to standard model particles. We find that the next-to-leading order corrections give rise to sizeable K factors for many channels, in some cases exposing the unitarity-violating behaviour of non-universal couplings scenarios, and in general greatly reduce the theoretical uncertainties. Our predictions are publicly available in the MAoGRApH5_aMC@NLO framework and can, therefore, be directly used in experimental simulations of spin-two particle production for arbitrary values of the mass and couplings. (C) 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.