Inclusive gauge boson production in the color dipole formalism

Abstract

The inclusive production of the gauge bosons $W^{\pm }$ and $Z^0$ is studied within the color dipole formalism. Gluon saturation effects associated to non-linear corrections to the QCD dynamics, which are expected to contribute at high energies, are naturally included in such formalism. We estimate the contribution of these effects at LHC energies and compare our results with the next-to-next-to-leading order collinear predictions. A comparison with the current experimental data is performed and predictions for higher energies are presented.

Comments: 12 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Version to be published in Physical Review D