Single Top Production in PDF fits

Understand

We study the impact of recent LHC $t$-channel single top-quark and top-antiquark measurements at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV on the parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton.

• We consider, namely, total cross sections, top-antitop cross section ratios, and differential distributions.
• We present a critical appraisal of the data, studying in particular how their description is affected by the theoretical details that enter the computation of the corresponding observables: QCD and electroweak higher-order corrections, the flavour scheme, and the value of the bottom-quark threshold.
• We perform a series of fits to the data within the NNPDF3.1 framework, whereby next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections are applied to single top measurements in a systematic way.