Target Fragmentation and Fracture Functions

We analyse recent data on the production of forward neutrons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA in the framework of a perturbative QCD description for semi-inclusive processes, which includes fracture functions.Comment: To be published in Proceedings of the Madrid low-x Workshop, Miraflores de la Sierra, June 18-21, 199

Polarized semi-inclusive electroweak structure functions at next-to-leading-order

We present a next-to-leading order (NLO) computation of the full set of polarized and unpolarized electroweak semi-inclusive DIS (SIDIS) structure functions, whose knowledge is crucial for a precise extraction of polarized parton distributions. We focus on the phenomenology of the polarized structure functions for the kinematical conditions that could be reached in an Electron-Ion-Collider. We show that the NLO corrections are sizeable, particularly in the small-$x$ range. We test the sensitivity of these structure functions on certain quark distributions and compare it to the situation of inclusive DIS and electromagnetic SIDIS.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

On Kaon production in e+e- and Semi-inclusive DIS reactions

We consider semi-inclusive unpolarized DIS for the production of charged kaons and the different possibilities to test the conventionally used assumptions s-\bar=0 and D_d^{K^+-K^-}=0. The considered tests have the advantage that they do not require any knowledge of the fragmentation functions. We also show that measurements of both charged and neutral kaons would allow the determination of the kaon FFs D_q^{K^++K^-} solely from SIDIS measurements, and discuss the comparison of (D_u-D_d)^{K^+-K^-} obtained independently in SIDIS and e+e- reactions. All analysis are performed in LO and NLO in QCD. The feasibility of the tests to HERMES SIDIS data is considered.Comment: 7 pages, NLO analysis for all presented tests and feasibility to HERMES data adde

Direct Higgs production and jet veto at hadron colliders

We consider Higgs boson production through gluon--gluon fusion in hadron collisions, when a veto is applied on the transverse momenta of the accompanying hard jets. We compute the QCD corrections to this process at NLO and NNLO, and present numerical results at the Tevatron and the LHC.Comment: 5 pages, 4 ps figures, presented at the XXXVIIth Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and Hadronic interactions, Les Arc1800, Franc

Higgs production in hadron collisions: soft and virtual QCD corrections at NNLO

We consider QCD corrections to Higgs boson production through gluon-gluon fusion in hadron collisions. Using the recently evaluated two-loop amplitude for this process and the corresponding factorization formulae for soft-gluon bremsstrahlung at O(alpha_s^2), we compute the soft and virtual contributions to the NNLO cross section. We also discuss soft-gluon resummation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. Numerical results for Higgs boson production at the LHC are presented.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures included. One note and one reference adde

Sea quark and gluon polarization in the nucleon at NLO accuracy

We investigate the sea quark polarization in the nucleon by means of a combined next to leading order analysis to the recently enlarged set of inclusive and semi-inclusive polarized deep inelastic scattering data. Using the Lagrange multiplier method, we asses the uncertainty inherent to the extraction of the different spin dependent parton densities in a QCD global fit, and the impact of the increased set of semi-inclusive data now available. We comment on future prospects at RHIC and JLAB and their potential impact in the future determination of polarized parton densities.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 3 table

Extraction of polarized parton densities from polarized DIS and SIDIS

We present results on the quark and gluon polarization in the nucleon obtained in a combined next to leading order analysis to the available inclusive and semi-inclusive polarized deep inelastic scattering data.Comment: Talk given at XIII International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering, April,27 - May,1, 2005, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 4 pages, 2 figure

Transverse-momentum resummation and the spectrum of the Higgs boson at the LHC

We consider the transverse-momentum (q_T) distribution of generic high-mass systems (lepton pairs, vector bosons, Higgs particles, ....) produced in hadron collisions. At small q_T, we concentrate on the all-order resummation of the logarithmically-enhanced contributions in QCD perturbation theory. We elaborate on the $b$-space resummation formalism and introduce some novel features: the large logarithmic contributions are systematically exponentiated in a process-independent form and, after integration over q_T, they are constrained by perturbative unitarity to give a vanishing contribution to the total cross section. At intermediate and large q_T, resummation is consistently combined with fixed-order perturbative results, to obtain predictions with uniform theoretical accuracy over the entire range of transverse momenta. The formalism is applied to Standard Model Higgs boson production at LHC energies. We combine the most advanced perturbative information available at present for this process: resummation up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy and fixed-order perturbation theory up to next-to-leading order. The results show a high stability with respect to perturbative QCD uncertainties.Comment: 48 pages, 13 postscript figure

Global analysis of helicity PDFs: past - present - future

We discuss the current status of the DSSV global analysis of helicity-dependent parton densities. A comparison with recent semi-inclusive DIS data from COMPASS is presented, and constraints on the polarized strangeness density are examined in some detail.Comment: Talk presented at the XIX Int. Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects (DIS 2011); 4 pages; 2 figure