Top-quark pair production at hadron colliders: differential cross section and phenomenological applications with DiffTop

Abstract: The results of phenomenological studies of top-quark pair production in proton-proton collisions are presented. Differential cross sections are calculated in perturbative QCD at approximate next-to-next-to-leading order ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^4)$ by using methods of threshold resummation beyond the leading logarithmic accuracy. Predictions for the single-particle inclusive kinematics are presented for transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of final-state top quarks. Uncertainties related to the description of proton structure, top-quark mass and strong coupling constant are investigated in detail. The results are compared to the recent measurements by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC at the center of mass energy of 7 TeV. The calculation presented here is implemented in the computer code \textsc{Difftop} and can be applied to the general case of heavy-quark pair production at hadron-hadron colliders. For the first time, a fit of parton distribution functions at NNLO is performed by using the differential cross sections of top-quark pair production together with other data sets. The impact of the top-pair production on the precision of the gluon distribution at high scales is illustrated.