NNLO QCD corrections to Higgs boson production at large transverse momentum

Abstract

Abstract:We derive the second-order QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson recoiling against a parton with finite transverse momentum, working in the effective field theory in which the top quark contributions are integrated out. To account for quark mass effects, we supplement the effective field theory result by the full quark mass dependence at leading order. Our calculation is fully differential in the final state kinematics and includes the decay of the Higgs boson to a photon pair. It allows one to make next-to-next-toleading order (NNLO)-accurate theory predictions for Higgs-plus-jet final states and for the transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs boson, accounting for the experimental definition of the fiducial cross sections. The NNLO QCD corrections are found to be moderate and positive, they lead to a substantial reduction of the theory uncertainty on the predictions. We compare our results to 8 TeV LHC data from ATLAS and CMS. While the shape of the data is well-described for both experiments, we agree on the normalization only for CMS. By normalizing data and theory to the inclusive fiducial cross section for Higgs production, good agreement is found for both experiments, however at the expense of an increased theory uncertainty. We make predictions for Higgs production observables at the 13 TeV LHC, which are in good agreement with recent ATLAS data. At this energy, the leading order mass corrections to the effective field theory prediction become significant at large transverse momenta, and we discuss the resulting uncertainties on the predictions.

Higgs bosons at high pT

“…At 300 GeV an increase of at least 3-4% is indicated, being comparable to the NNLO scale uncertainty of 8% [69,32,29]. This is in agreement with the NLO † approach, which also suggests a reweighting leading to a harder p T spectrum.…”

“…Such an approach was pursued recently [69]. This methodology has two potential drawbacks: Firstly, the ratio may not be defined over the full range of the observable phase space.…”

Modeling BSM effects on the Higgs transverse-momentum spectrum in an EFT approach

“…[61][62][63]. Recently, results on Higgs+jet production at O(α 5 S ) were also obtained in the HTL [64][65][66]. In the low-p T region (p T m H ), the convergence of the perturbative expansion is spoiled by the presence of large logarithmic terms of the form α n S ln m (m 2 H /p 2 T ).…”

Light-quarks Yukawa couplings and new physics in exclusive high- pT Higgs boson+jet and Higgs boson + Cohen1, Bar‐Shalom2, Eilam3 et al. 2018Phys. Rev. D181160View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…Indeed, a key observable for Higgs boson events is the number of jets produced in the event. For that reason, and since the Higgs p T distribution is sensitive to the production mechanism, there has recently been a growing interest, both experimentally [1][2][3][4][5][6] and theoretically [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], in the behavior of the Higgs p T distribution in inclusive and exclusive Higgs production, where the Higgs carries a substantial fraction of transverse momentum (for earlier work see [16][17][18][19]). In particular, the Higgs p T distribution in the exclusive Higgs þ jets production, pp → h þ nj, was one of the prime targets of the measurements performed recently by ATLAS and CMS [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

“…It is interesting to note that there has been some hints in the LHC 8 TeV data for an excess in the h þ j channel [3,9], although the statistics are still limited and the theoretical uncertainties are relatively large. Indeed, a significant effort has been dedicated in recent years, from the theory side, towards understanding and reducing the uncertainties pertaining to the Higgs þ jet production cross section at the LHC [7,8,[10][11][12][13][20][21][22], with special attention given to higher transverse momentum of the Higgs, where NP effects are expected to become more apparent. In particular, the high-p T Higgs spectrum in pp → h þ jðj b Þ can be sensitive to various well motivated NP scenarios, such as supersymmetry [23][24][25][26], heavy top-partners [27], higher dimensional effective operators [28][29][30][31][32] and NP in Higgs-top quark and Higgs-gluon interactions in the so-called "kappa-framework", where one assumes that the hgg and htt interactions are scaled by some factor with respect to the SM [33][34][35][36].…”