Total cross-section for Higgs boson hadroproduction with anomalous Standard-Model interactions

Abstract

We present a new program (iHixs) which computes the inclusive Higgs boson cross-section at hadron colliders. It incorporates QCD corrections through NNLO, real and virtual electroweak corrections, mixed QCD-electroweak corrections, quark-mass effects through NLO in QCD, and finite width effects for the Higgs boson and heavy quarks. iHixs can be used to obtain the most precise cross-section values in fixed order perturbation theory in the Standard Model. In addition, it allows for a consistent evaluation of the cross-section in modified Higgs boson sectors with anomalous Yukawa and electroweak interactions as required in extensions of the Standard Model. iHixs is interfaced with the LHAPDF library and can be used with all available NNLO sets of parton distribution functions.

Inclusive Higgs boson cross-section for the LHC at 8 TeV

“…For illustration, we present in Figure 2 the behavior of the cross-section at 8 TeV by varying the renormalization and factorization scales µ = µ R = µ F simultaneously 1 . As it has already been realized in the literature, smaller scales than the Higgs boson mass lead to a faster convergence of the perturbative expansion [5,6]. We estimate the theoretical uncertainty from uncalculated higher order corrections by varying the renormalization and factorization scale in the interval µ ∈ m H 4 , m H .…”

“…In this article, we have presented predictions for the inclusive gluon fusion cross-section at the LHC with 8 TeV center of mass energy using our publicly available program iHixs [5]. We have reviewed the perturbative convergence of the cross-section and derived uncertainty estimates due to uncalculated higher order effects by means of scale variations.…”

“…We obtain state of the art predictions for the inclusive gluon fusion cross section and its uncertainties with our publicly available computer program iHixs [5]. iHixs evaluates the contribution to the cross-section in NNLO QCD and includes important electroweak effects.…”

“…iHixs evaluates the contribution to the cross-section in NNLO QCD and includes important electroweak effects. A detailed description of the theoretical contributions [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] which are incorporated and accounted for in iHixs can be found in the corresponding publication [5].…”

A meta-analysis of parton distribution functions

“…We examined a group of observables that probe various combinations of PDFs in the typical LHC measurements, as discussed in [4]. They include the total cross sections for W and Z boson production (with a decay into a lepton pair) at NNLO ( [42], Vrap); SM Higgs boson production via gg and bb fusion, computed at NNLO ( [43], iHixs1.3); tt production with m t = 173.5 GeV at partial NNLO [44][45][46][47] and including resummed contributions [48][49][50], implemented in TOP++1.5; as well as differential distributions of single-inclusive jet production at NLO ([51], FastNLO2.0) for ATLAS kinematic bins [52]. The agreement between the input and fitted PDFs (both for α s (M Z ) = 0.118 and the α s series) is nearly perfect for CT10 and NNPDF2.3.…”