Comparison of Phase Space Slicing and Dipole Subtraction Methods for gamma^* -> Q Qbar

Abstract

We compare the phase space slicing and dipole subtraction methods in the computation of the inclusive and differential next-to-leading order cross sections for heavy quark production in the simple process gamma^* -> Q Qbar. For the phase space slicing method we study the effects of improvement terms that remove restrictions on the slicing parameter s_min. For the dipole method our comparison is a first check on some of its counterterms involving massive quarks, derived recently. In our comparison we address issues such as numerical accuracy and efficiency.