Abstract: In this paper, we present results at next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD for photon pair production in association with two jets via vector boson scattering within the Standard Model (SM), and also in an effective field theory framework with anomalous gauge coupling effects via bosonic dimension-6 and 8 operators. We observe that, com- pared to other processes in the class of two electroweak (EW) vector boson production in association with two jets, more exclusive cuts are needed in order to suppress the SM QCD-induced background channel. As expected, the NLO QCD corrections reduce the scale uncertainties considerably. Using a well-motivated dynamical scale choice, we find moderate K -factors for the EW-induced process while the QCD-induced channel receives much larger corrections. Furthermore, we observe that applying a cut of Delta phi(cut)(j2 gamma 1) <2.5 for the second hardest jet and the hardest photon helps to increase the signal significance and reduces the impact of higher-order QCD corrections.

Abstract: We consider the singular behaviour of QCD scattering amplitudes in kinematical configurations where two or more momenta of the external partons become collinear. At the tree level, this behaviour is known to be controlled by factorization formulae in which the singular collinear factor is universal (process independent). We show that this strict (process-independent) factorization is not valid at one-loop and higher-loop orders in the case of the collinear limit in space-like regions (e. g., collinear radiation from initial-state partons). We introduce a generalized version of all-order collinear factorization, in which the space-like singular factors retain some dependence on the momentum and colour charge of the non-collinear partons. We present explicit results on one-loop and two-loop amplitudes for both the two-parton and multiparton collinear limits. At the level of squared amplitudes and, more generally, cross sections in hadron-hadron collisions, the violation of strict collinear factorization has implications on the non-abelian structure of logarithmically-enhanced terms in perturbative calculations (starting from the next-to-next-to-leading order) and on various factorization issues of mass singularities (starting from the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order).

Abstract: We compute the two-loop QED corrections to the Altarelli-Parisi (AP) splitting functions by using a deconstructive algorithmic Abelianization of the well-known NLO QCD corrections. We present explicit results for the full set of splitting kernels in a basis that includes the leptonic distribution functions that, starting from this order in the QED coupling, couple to the partonic densities. Finally, we perform a phenomenological analysis of the impact of these corrections in the splitting functions.