Higher order corrections to parton showering from resummation calculations

Abstract

The connection between analytic and Monte Carlo calculations of soft gluon emission is reanalyzed in light of recent, theoretical developments in resummation. An alternative Monte Carlo algorithm is suggested which incorporates (1) corrections beyond leading order to the showering and (2) smoothly merges with the higher order calculation of single, hard parton emission. In particular, it is possible to study jet properties in heavy boson production for all values of the boson transverse momentum with a total cross section of NLO accuracy. The specific cases of $W$, $Z$ and Higgs boson production at the Tevatron are addressed using a modified version of the Pythia Monte Carlo.

26 pages (7 figures) in Revtex format; added a comparison with Run I data; updated results to reflect a bug fixed in Pythia; updated and added some references; theoretical discussion unchanged, but the phenomenological results are improved