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Abstract:

This talk discusses the relative impact of running-coupling and other higher-order corrections on the small-x gluon-gluon splitting function. Comments are made on similarities with some aspects of the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation, which arise because of the presence of an effective infrared cutoff in both cases. It is emphasised that, at least in the splitting-function case, the asymptotic small-x behaviour has little relevance to the phenomenologically interesting preasymptotic region. This is illustrated with the aid of a convolution of the resummed splitting function with a toy gluon distribution.

Abstract:

We provide an assessment of the impact of parton distributions on the determination of LHC processes, and of the accuracy with which parton distribution functions (PDFs) can be extracted from data, in particular from current and forthcoming HERA experiments. We give an overview of reference LHC processes and their associated PDF uncertainties, and study in detail W and Z production at the LHC. We discuss the precision which may be obtained from the analysis of existing HERA data, tests of consistency of HERA data from different experiments, and the combination of these data. We determine further improvements on PDFs which may be obtained from future HERA data (including measurements of FL), and from combining present and future HERA data with present and future hadron collider data. We review the current status of knowledge of higher (NNLO) QCD corrections to perturbative evolution and deep-inelastic scattering, and provide reference results for their impact on parton evolution, and we briefly examine non-perturbative models for parton distributions. We discuss the state-of-the art in global parton fits, we assess the impact on them of various kinds of data and of theoretical corrections, by providing benchmarks of Alekhin and MRST parton distributions and a CTEQ analysis of parton fit stability, and we briefly present proposals for alternative approaches to parton fitting. We summarize the status of large and small x resummation, by providing estimates of the impact of large x resummation on parton fits, and a comparison of different approaches to small x resummation, for which we also discuss numerical techniques.

Abstract:

Next-to-leading logarithmic final-state resummed predictions have traditionally been calculated, manually, separately for each observable. In this article we derive NLL resummed results for generic observables. We highlight and discuss the conditions that the observable should satisfy for the approach to be valid, in particular continuous globalness and recursive infrared and collinear safety. The resulting resummation formula is expressed in terms of certain well-defined characteristics of the observable. We have written a computer program, CAESAR, which, given a subroutine for an arbitrary observable, determines those characteristics, enabling full automation of a large class of final-state resummations, in a range of processes. © SISSA 2005.