Top-quark pair hadroproduction at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD

Abstract

We report on a new calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections to the inclusive production of top-quark pairs at hadron colliders. The calculation is performed by using the ${q}_{T}$ subtraction formalism to handle and cancel infrared singular contributions at intermediate stages of the computation. We present numerical results for the total cross section in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ and 13 TeV, and we compare them with those obtained by using the publicly available numerical program Top++. Our computation represents the first complete application of the ${q}_{T}$ subtraction formalism to the hadroproduction of a colorful high-mass system at next-to-next-to-leading order.