Physics Letters B (Nov 2022)
Pion and kaon fragmentation functions at next-to-next-to-leading order
Abstract
We present a new determination of unpolarised charged pion and kaon fragmentation functions from a set of single-inclusive electron-positron annihilation and lepton-nucleon semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering data. The determination includes next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to both processes, and is carried out in a framework that combines a neural-network parametrisation of fragmentation functions with a Monte Carlo representation of their uncertainties. We discuss the quality of the determination, in particular its dependence on higher order corrections.