Diphoton production at hadron colliders: transverse-momentum resummation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy

Abstract

Abstract: We consider the transverse-momentum (qT) distribution of a diphoton pair produced in hadron collisions. At small values of qT, we resum the logarithmically-enhanced perturbative QCD contributions up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. At intermediate and large values of qT, we consistently combine resummation with the known next-to-leading order perturbative result. All perturbative terms up to order αS2 are included in our computation which, after integration over qT, reproduces the known next- to-next-to-leading order result for the diphoton pair production total cross section. We present a comparison with LHC data and an estimate of the perturbative accuracy of the theoretical calculation by performing the corresponding variation of scales. In general we observe that the effect of the resummation is not only to recover the predictivity of the calculation at small transverse momentum, but also to improve substantially the agreement with the experimental data.