MEKS: a program for computation of inclusive jet cross sections at hadron colliders

Abstract: EKS is a numerical program that predicts differential cross sections for production of single-inclusive hadronic jets and jet pairs at next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy in a perturbative QCD calculation. We describe MEKS 1.0, an upgraded EKS program with increased numerical precision, suitable for comparisons to the latest experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron. The program integrates the regularized patron-level matrix elements over the kinematical phase space for production of two and three partons using the VEGAS algorithm. It stores the generated weighted events in finely binned two-dimensional histograms for fast offline analysis. A user interface allows one to customize computation of inclusive jet observables. Results of a benchmark comparison of the MEKS program and the commonly used FastNLO program are also documented.