AUTOMATING QCD RADIATIVE CORRECTIONS FOR INCLUSIVE HEAVY-QUARKONIUM PRODUCTION

In the realm of particle physics, quarkonium production stands as an alluring enigma, and efforts to realise a dynamic and collaborative interchange between theory and experiment in this frontier are yet to reach their full potential. Notwithstanding certain caveats, the broad field of quarkonium physics remains a pivotal tool in unravelling the inner structure of the proton and elucidating crucial unresolved challenges in particle physics.AutomOnium’s objective is to provide the first automated tool up to next-to-leading (NLO) accuracy for heavy-quarkonium production. This will be based on, and ultimately integrated into, the well known MadGraph5_aMC@NLO code, extending the current capabilities of high-energy particle physics cross section and event generators and enabling efficient and robust computations covering inclusive hadro- and photoproduction at particle colliders. Explicitly, the tool will be versatile enough to provide state-of-the-art theoretical predictions, encompassing the successful collinear and transverse-momentum-dependent factorisation methodologies in perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the kinematic regions where they are most applicable, for all heavy quarkonium.Such an endeavour will enrich the interactions between the theoretical and experimental high-energy particle physics communities and have a direct and far-reaching impact on the construction of physics cases for current and future experimental facilities. It will open up the possibility to enhance our knowledge of heavy quark bound state production, an area of QCD poorly known, as well as facilitate the first global phenomenological analyses using the plethora of quarkonium data from experiment.AutomOnium's science will be shared via the EU virtual access project NLOAccess and be conducted at Université Catholique de Louvain with expertise in QCD, particle physics and automation, allowing me to enhance myself both scientifically and autonomously.