title: Percent-level-precision physics at the Tevatron: next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to qq¯→tt¯+X.
abstract: We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the partonic reaction that dominates top-pair production at the Tevatron. This is the first ever next-to-next-to-leading order calculation of an observable with more than two colored partons and/or massive fermions at hadron colliders. Augmenting our fixed order calculation with soft-gluon resummation through next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, we observe that the predicted total inclusive cross section exhibits a very small perturbative uncertainty, estimated at ±2.7%. We expect that once all subdominant partonic reactions are accounted for, and work in this direction is ongoing, the perturbative theoretical uncertainty for this observable could drop below ±2%. Our calculation demonstrates the power of our computational approach and proves it can be successfully applied to all processes at hadron colliders for which high-precision analyses are needed.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik und Kosmologie, RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bärnreuther
authors.forename: Michał
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Czakon
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mitov