A massive variable flavour number scheme for the Drell-Yan process

The prediction of differential cross-sections in hadron-hadron scattering processes is typically performed in a scheme where the heavy-flavour quarks (c, b, tc,b,t) are treated either as massless or massive partons. In this work, a method to describe the production of colour-singlet processes which combines these two approaches is presented. The core idea is that the contribution from power corrections involving the heavy-quark mass can be numerically isolated from the rest of the massive computation. These power corrections can then be combined with a massless computation (where they are absent), enabling the construction of differential cross-section predictions in a massive variable flavour number scheme. As an example, the procedure is applied to the low-mass Drell-Yan process within the LHCb fiducial region, where predictions for the rapidity and transverse-momentum distributions of the lepton pair are provided. To validate the procedure, it is shown how the n_fnf-dependent coefficient of a massless computation can be recovered from the massless limit of the massive one. This feature is also used to differentially extract the massless N^3LON3LO coefficient of the Drell-Yan process in the gluon-fusion channel.

Fundamental physical features of resonant spontaneous bremsstrahlung radiation of ultrarelativistic electrons on nuclei in strong laser fields

Theoretically predicted fundamental features in the process of resonant spontaneous bremsstrahlung radiation during the scattering of ultrarelativistic electrons with energies of the order ∼ 100 GeV by the nuclei in strong laser fields with intensities up to I ∼ 1024 W cm−2. Under resonant conditions, an intermediate electron in the wave field enters the mass shell. As a result, the initial second-order process by the fine structure constant is effectively reduced to two first-order processes: laser-stimulated Compton effect and laser-assisted Mott process. The resonant kinematics for two reaction channels (A and B) is studied in detail. An analytical resonant differential cross-section with simultaneous registration of the frequency and the outgoing angle of a spontaneous gamma-quantum for channels A and B is obtained. The resonant differential cross section takes the largest value with a small number of absorbed laser photons. In this case, the resonant cross-section is determined by one parameter, depending on the small transmitted momenta, as well as the resonance width. In strong fields, spontaneous gamma quanta of small energies are most likely to be emitted compared to the energy of the initial electrons. At the same time, the angular width of the radiation of such gamma quanta is the largest. With an increase in the number of absorbed laser photons, the resonant cross-section decreases quite quickly, and the resonant frequency of spontaneous gamma quanta increases. It is shown that the resonant differential cross-section has the largest value in the region of average laser fields (I ∼ 1018 W cm−2) and can be of the order of ∼ 1 0 19 in units Z 2 α r e 2 . With an increase in the intensity of the laser wave, the value of the resonant differential cross-section R r e s max decreases and for the intensity I ∼ 1024 W cm−2 is R r e s max ≲ 1 0 7 in units Z 2 α r e 2 . The obtained results reveal new features of spontaneous emission of ultrarelativistic electrons on nuclei in strong laser fields and can be tested at international laser installations.

Development and validation of proton track-structure model applicable to arbitrary materials

A novel transport algorithm performing proton track-structure calculations in arbitrary materials was developed. Unlike conventional algorithms, which are based on the dielectric function of the target material, our algorithm uses a total stopping power formula and single-differential cross sections of secondary electron production. The former was used to simulate energy dissipation of incident protons and the latter was used to consider secondary electron production. In this algorithm, the incident proton was transmitted freely in matter until the proton produced a secondary electron. The corresponding ionising energy loss was calculated as the sum of the ionisation energy and the kinetic energy of the secondary electron whereas the non-ionising energy loss was obtained by subtracting the ionising energy loss from the total stopping power. The most remarkable attribute of this model is its applicability to arbitrary materials, i.e. the model utilises the total stopping power and the single-differential cross sections for secondary electron production rather than the material-specific dielectric functions. Benchmarking of the stopping range, radial dose distribution, secondary electron energy spectra in liquid water, and lineal energy in tissue-equivalent gas, against the experimental data taken from literature agreed well. This indicated the accuracy of the present model even for materials other than liquid water. Regarding microscopic energy deposition, this model will be a robust tool for analysing the irradiation effects of cells, semiconductors and detectors.

Scattering of Fermions by a Magnetic Dipole Field

In this paper we study the problem of fermions scattering by the field of a magnetic dipole in Minkowski space-time. The amplitude and differential cross section for scattering of massive fermions are obtained using the exact solution of the Dirac equation written in the helicity basis. We found that the most probable transitions are those that scatter the fermions perpendicular to the direction of the magnetic field and we consider only the transverse momenta in our analysis. The differential cross section behavior in terms of scattering angle and energy is graphically analysed and we perform a comparative study with the Coulomb scattering.