A first next-to-next-to-leading order study of three-jet production at the LHC

Understand

Multi-jet rates at hadron colliders provide a unique possibility for probing Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions.

• By comparing theory predictions with collider data, one can directly test perturbative QCD, extract fundamental parameters like the strong coupling $\alpha_s$ and search for physics beyond the Standard Model.
• In this work we calculate, for the first time, the next-to-next-to-leading (NNLO) QCD corrections to typical three-jet observables and to differential three-to-two jet ratios.
• We demonstrate that the inclusion of the NNLO corrections significantly reduces the dependence of those observables on the factorization and renormalization scales.