Measurement of the differential cross section of photon plus jet production in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV

We study the process of associated photon and jet production, p (p) over bar -> gamma + jet + X, using 8.7 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at a center-of-mass energy root s = 1.96 TeV. Photons are reconstructed with rapidity vertical bar y(gamma)vertical bar 20 GeV. The highest-p(T) jet is required to be in one of four rapidity regions up to vertical bar y(jet)vertical bar 0) and opposite signs (y(gamma)y(jet) <= 0) of photon and jet rapidities. We compare the measured triple-differential cross sections, d(3)sigma/dp(T)(gamma)dy(gamma)dy(jet), to next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations using different sets of parton distribution functions, and to predictions from the SHERPA and PYTHIA Monte Carlo event generators. The NLO calculations are found to be in general agreement with the data but do not describe all kinematic regions.