Differential $$\boldsymbol{W}^{{+}}{/}\boldsymbol{W}^{{-}}$$ Cross Section Ratios for $$\boldsymbol{W}$$ Plus Jet Production in $$\boldsymbol{pp}$$ Collisions Through (N)NLO in QCD

This paper presents a phenomenological study of differential $$W^{+}/W^{-}$$ cross section ratios for $$W$$ -boson production in association with a jet through next-to-leading-order (NLO) and next-to-NLO (NNLO) calculations in perturbative QCD based on the $$q_{T}$$ -subtraction approach. The $$W^{+}/W^{-}$$ cross section ratios are calculated for proton–proton collisions at both 8 and 13 TeV energies. The differential distributions for the ratios are presented as functions of important variables that are sensitive to perturbative QCD corrections including the transverse momentum of the W boson, the transverse momentum of the leading jet, and the absolute rapidity of the leading jet. The predicted distributions at (N)NLO accuracy are compared with the 8 TeV data from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The differential distributions at 13 TeV are compared at (N)NLO using different parton distribution functions (PDFs) to assess sensitivity of calculations to different PDF models. The presented ratios are found to be under good control by the (N)NLO calculations for most of the phase space regions.