Parton distribution benchmarking with LHC data

Abstract

We present a detailed comparison of the most recent sets of NNLO PDFs from the ABM, CT, HERAPDF, MSTW and NNPDF collaborations. We compare parton dis-tributions at low and high scales and parton luminosities relevant for LHC phenomenology. We study the PDF dependence of LHC benchmark inclusive cross sections and differential distributions for electroweak boson and jet production in the cases in which the experimen- tal covariance matrix is available. We quantify the agreement between data and theory by computing the ✗2 for each data set with all the various PDFs. PDF comparisons are per- formed consistently for common values of the strong coupling. We also present a benchmark comparison of jet production at the LHC, comparing the results from various available codes and scale settings. Finally, we discuss the implications of the updated NNLO PDF sets for the combined PDF+αs uncertainty in the gluon fusion Higgs production cross section.