Review of single vector boson production in pp collisions at √(s) = 7 TeV

This review summarises the main results on the production of single vector bosons in the Standard Model, both inclusively and in association with light- and heavy-flavour jets, at the Large Hadron Collider in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The general purpose detectors at this collider, ATLAS and CMS, each recorded an integrated luminosity of ∼ 40 pb-1 and 5 fb-1 in the years 2010 and 2011, respectively. The corresponding data offer the unique possibility to precisely study the properties of the production of heavy vector bosons in a new energy regime. The accurate understanding of the Standard Model is not only crucial for searches of unknown particles and phenomena but also to test predictions of perturbative Quantum-Chromodynamics calculations and for precision measurements of observables in the electroweak sector. Results from a variety of measurements in which single W or Z bosons are identified are reviewed. Special emphasis in this review is given to interpretations of the experimental results in the context of state-of-the-art predictions. (orig.)