Mueller–Navelet jets at LHC: BFKL versus high-energy DGLAP

Abstract

The production of forward jets separated by a large rapidity gap at LHC, the so-called Mueller–Navelet jets, is a fundamental testfield for perturbative QCD in the high-energy limit. Several analyses have already provided us with evidence about the compatibility of theoretical predictions, based on collinear factorization and BFKL resummation of energy logarithms in the next-to-leading approximation, with the CMS experimental data at 7 TeV of center-of-mass energy. However, the question if the same data can be described also by fixed-order perturbative approaches has not yet been fully answered. In this paper we provide numerical evidence that the mere use of partially asymmetric cuts in the transverse momenta of the detected jets allows for a clear separation between BFKL-resummed and fixed-order predictions in some observables related with the Mueller–Navelet jet production process.