Estimating the impact of mixed QCD-electroweak corrections on the W -mass determination at the LHC

We study the impact of the recently computed mixed QCD-electroweak corrections to the production of W and Z bosons at the LHC on the value of the W mass extracted from the transverse momentum distribution of charged leptons from W decays. Using the average lepton transverse momenta in W and Z decays as simplified observables for the determination of the W mass, we estimate that mixed QCD-electroweak corrections can shift the extracted value of the W mass by up to O(20)  MeV, depending on the kinematic cuts employed to define fiducial cross sections for Z and W production. Since the target precision of the W-mass measurement at the LHC is O(10) MeV, our results emphasize the need for fully differential computations of mixed QCD-electroweak corrections and a careful analysis of their potential impact on the determination of the W mass.