Documentation of MCFM and CuTe-MCFM

MCFM is a parton-level Monte Carlo program that gives NLO and NNLO predictions for a wide range of processes at hadron colliders. The program has been developed over a number of years and results have been presented in a number of published papers. Since version 10.0 SCET-based $q_T$-resummed predictions can be computed at order $\text{N}^3\text{LL+NNLO}$ for all color-singlet processes. This constitutes the CuTe-MCFM release.

This HTML documentation supersedes the PDF manual distributed with MCFM in Doc/manual.pdf, but is, as of now, still incomplete. In particular, please refer to the PDF manual for a complete list of processes and configuration options.

Showcase processes

• t-channel single-top-quark production and decay at NNLO, with double-DIS scales
• Diphoton production, implemented at $\text{N}^3\text{LL}'+\text{NNLO}$ including three-loop hard- and beam-functions as well as gg-channel at $\alpha_s^3$

Citing MCFM and CuTe-MCFM

When using MCFM we recommend citing the original papers describing the original NLO codebase and the release of MCFM 9, which is a structural rewrite and adds a series of significant features and performance improvements:

• J. M. Campbell and R. K. Ellis. An update on vector boson pair production at hadron colliders. Phys. Rev. D, 60:113006, 1999. arXiv:hep-ph/9905386

• J. M. Campbell, R. K. Ellis and C. Williams. Vector boson pair production at the LHC. JHEP, 07:018, 2011. arXiv:1105.0020

• J. M. Campbell and T. Neumann. Precision Phenomenology with MCFM. JHEP, 12:034, 2019. arXiv:1909.09117

When using any $q_T$-resummed process please refer to the code as CuTe-MCFM and cite

• Thomas Becher and Tobias Neumann. Fiducial qT resummation of color-singlet processes at N³LL+NNLO. JHEP, 03:199, 2021. arXiv:2009.11437

Citing the C++ interface to MCFM

When using the C++ interface to the matrix elements in MCFM please also cite

• John M. Campbell, Stefan Hoeche and Christian T. Preuss. Accelerating LHC phenomenology with analytic one-loop amplitudes: A C++ interface to MCFM. Eur.Phys.J.C 81 (2021) 1117. arXiv:2107.04472

Citations for individual processes

We ask to cite the respective paper for the process that is being used. Please see the process list and the output of MCFM for that. For example, since version 8.0 MCFM can compute $Z, W^\pm, H, W^\pm H, ZH, \gamma\gamma$ at NNLO. If using any of these at NNLO please cite ref.¹.

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1. Radja Boughezal, John M. Campbell, R. Keith Ellis, Christfried Focke, Walter Giele, Xiaohui Liu, Frank Petriello, and Ciaran Williams. Color singlet production at NNLO in MCFM. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77$1$:7, 2017. arXiv:1605.08011, doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4558-y. ↩