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One-loop weak corrections to hadronic production of Z bosons at large transverse momenta

To match the precision of present and future measurements of Z-boson production at hadron colliders, electroweak radiative corrections must be included in the theory predictions. In this paper we consider their effect on the transverse momentum ($p_T$) distribution of Z bosons, with emphasis on large $p_T$. We evaluate, analytically and numerically, the full one-loop corrections for the parton scattering reaction $q\bar q \to Z g$ and its crossed variants. In addition we derive compact approximate expressions which are valid in the high-energy region, where the weak corrections are strongly enhanced by logarithms of $\hat s/M_W^2$. These expressions include quadratic and single logarithms as well as those terms that are not logarithmically enhanced. This approximation, which confirms and extends earlier results obtained to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, permits to reproduce the exact one-loop corrections with high precision. Numerical results are presented for proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions. The corrections are negative and their size increases with $p_T$. For the Tevatron they amount up to -7% at 300 GeV. For the LHC, where transverse momenta of 2 TeV or more can be reached, corrections up to -40% are observed. We also include the dominant two-loop effects of up to 8% in our final LHC predictions.