The $$q_T$$ qT subtraction method: electroweak corrections and power suppressed contributions

Abstract

Abstract Building upon the formulation of transverse-momentum resummation for heavy-quark hadroproduction, we present the first application of the $$q_T$$ qT subtraction formalism to the computation of electroweak corrections to massive lepton pairs through the Drell–Yan mechanism. We then study the power suppressed contributions to the $$q_T$$ qT subtraction formula in the parameter $$r_{\mathrm{cut}}$$ rcut , defined as the minimum transverse momentum of the lepton pair normalised to its invariant mass. We analytically compute the leading power correction from initial and final-state radiation to the inclusive cross section. In the case of initial-state radiation the power correction is quadratic in $$r_{\mathrm{cut}}$$ rcut and our analytic result is consistent with results previously obtained in the literature. Final-state radiation produces linear contributions in $$r_{\mathrm{cut}}$$ rcut that may challenge the efficiency of the $$q_T$$ qT subtraction procedure. We explicitly compute the linear power correction in the case of the inclusive cross section and we discuss the extension of our calculation to differential distributions.