Electroweak Gauge Boson Parton Distribution Functions

Abstract

Transverse and longitudinal electroweak gauge boson parton distribution functions (PDFs) are computed in terms of deep-inelastic scattering structure functions, following the recently developed method to determine the photon PDF. The calculation provides initial conditions at the electroweak scale for PDF evolution to higher energies. Numerical results for the $W^{\pm }$ and $Z$ transverse, longitudinal and polarized PDFs, as well as the $\gamma Z$ transverse and polarized PDFs are presented.

Comments: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2: journal version