Precise QCD predictions for the production of Higgs + jet final states

Abstract

We compute the cross section and differential distributions for the production of a Standard Model Higgs boson in association with a hadronic jet to next-to-next-to-leading order in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In Higgs boson studies at the LHC, final states containing one jet are a dominant contribution to the total event rate, and their understanding is crucial for improved determinations of the Higgs boson properties. We observe substantial higher order corrections to transverse momentum spectra and rapidity distributions in Higgs-plus-one-jet final states. Their inclusion stabilises the residual theoretical uncertainty of the predictions around 9%, thereby providing important input to precision studies of the Higgs boson.After the initial observation of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson at the CERN LHC [1,2], precision studies of the properties of the new particle is one of the primary objectives of the upcoming run at the LHC. Careful measurements of production and decay modes will enable searches for possible small deviations from the Standard Model formulation of the Higgs mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. The interpretation of these precision data relies on a close interplay between experimental measurements and theoretical calculations for Higgs boson signal and background processes.To obtain reliable theoretical predictions for hadron collider observables, corrections from higher order processes in QCD need to be accounted for. For the most important Higgs boson production processes, impressive progress has been made in recent years, such that gluon fusion [3] and associated production [4] are described fully exclusively to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD, and vector-boson-fusion [5] and associated production with top quarks [6] to next-to-leading order (NLO). For the gluon fusion process, which is the largest contribution to Higgs production at the LHC, NLO corrections have also been derived for Higgs boson production in association with up to three jets [7][8][9]. Recently, the first steps towards the fourth-order QCD corrections (N 3 LO) have been taken [10].The number of jets produced in association with a Higgs boson candidate is a very important discriminator between different production modes, and is utilised in the optimization of signal-to-

Precise QCD Predictions for the Production of Dijet Final States in Deep Inelastic Scattering

“…This program can then incorporate the jet algorithm used in the experimental measurement as well as any type of event selection cuts. A substantial part of the infrastructure of our program is common to other NNLO calculations of jet production observables within the antenna subtraction method [28][29][30][31][32], which are all part of a newly developed code named NNLOJET. To validate our implementation of the tree-level and one-loop matrix elements, we compared the NLO predictions for dijet and trijet production against SHERPA [33] (in DIS kinematics [34]), which uses OPENLOOPS [35] to automatically generate the one-loop contributions at NLO.…”

The NNLO QCD corrections to Z boson production at large transverse momentum

“…This program provides the necessary infrastructure for the antenna subtraction of hadron collider processes at NNLO and performs the integration of all contributing subprocesses at this order. Components of it have also been used in other NNLO QCD calculations [64][65][66][67][68][69] using the antenna subtraction method. Other processes can be added to NNLOJET provided the matrix elements are available.…”

Precise QCD predictions for jet production at the LHC

“…In Ref. [22] precise predictions in the gg-channel for Standard Model Higgs boson production in association with a hadronic jet at NNLO in QCD have also been derived while the generalisation of the method for the case of heavy quark production at NNLO was developed in Refs. [23], and first numerical results of this approach have been presented in Ref.…”