Di-lepton Rapidity Distribution in Drell-Yan Production to Third Order in QCD

Abstract

We compute for the first time the lepton-pair rapidity distribution in the photon-mediated Drell-Yan process to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N${}^3$LO) in QCD. The calculation is based on the qT-subtraction method, suitably extended to this order for quark-antiquark initiated Born processes. Our results display sizeable QCD corrections at N${}^3$LO over the full rapidity region and provide a fully independent confirmation of the recent results for the total Drell-Yan cross section at this order.

Comments: 7 pages, 3 figures, version 2 with fitted total cross section from qT sub-leading power correction and with changes for PRL publication