NLO QCD + NLO EW corrections to WZZ productions with leptonic decays at the LHC

Abstract

Abstract: Precision tests of the Standard Model (SM) require not only accurate experiments, but also precise and reliable theoretical predictions. Triple vector boson production provides a unique opportunity to investigate the quartic gauge couplings and check the validity of the gauge principle in the SM. Since the tree-level predictions alone are inadequate to meet this demand, the next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation becomes compulsory. In this paper, we calculate the NLO QCD + NLO electroweak (EW) corrections to the W±ZZ productions with subsequent leptonic decays at the 14 TeV LHC by adopting an improved narrow width approximation which takes into account the off-shell contributions and spin correlations from the W±- and Z-boson leptonic decays. The NLO QCD+EW corrected integrated cross sections for the W±ZZ productions and some kinematic distributions of final products are provided. The results show that both the NLO QCD and NLO EW corrections are significant. In the jet-veto event selection scheme with pT,jetcut = 50 GeV, the NLO QCD+EW relative corrections to the integrated cross section are 20.5% and 31.1%, while the genuine NLO EW relative corrections are −5.42% and −4.58%, for the W+ZZ and W−ZZ productions, respectively. We also investigate the theoretical dependence of the integrated cross section on the factorization/renormalization scale, and find that the scale uncertainty is underestimated at the LO due to the fact that the strong coupling αs is not involved in the LO matrix elements.