Electroweak and QCD corrections to Z -boson production with one b jet in a massive five-flavor scheme

We compute the O(αsα2) and O(αs2α) contributions to the production cross section of a Z boson with one b jet at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and study their phenomenological relevance for LHC physics. The accurate prediction of hadronic Z+b-jet production is needed to control a background that greatly affects both the measurement of Higgs-boson properties and the searches of new physics at the LHC. At the same time it could enable the first precise measurement of the b-quark parton distribution function. In this context b-quark mass effects become relevant and need to be studied with care, both at the level of the hard process and at the level of the initial- and final-state parton evolution. It is the aim of this paper to explore some of these issues in the framework of a massive five-flavor scheme and to assess the need for the inclusion of both electroweak corrections, in addition to QCD corrections, and b-quark mass effects in the prediction of total and differential cross sections for hadronic Z+b-jet production.