Four-Jet Production at the Large Hadron Collider at Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

Abstract

We present the cross sections for production of up to four jets at the Large Hadron Collider, at next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling. We use the BlackHat library in conjunction with SHERPA and a recently developed algorithm for assembling primitive amplitudes into color-dressed amplitudes. We adopt the cuts used by ATLAS in their study of multi-jet events in pp collisions at \sqrt{s} = 7 TeV. We include estimates of nonperturbative corrections and compare to ATLAS data. We store intermediate results in a framework that allows the inexpensive computation of additional results for different choices of scale or parton distributions.

5 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. v2: references added, additional discussion of scale and PDF uncertainties, other minor clarifications