Physics Letters B 781 (2018) 672–677
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Second-order QCD effects in Higgs boson production through vector
boson fusion
J. Cruz-Martinez
a,∗
, T. Gehrmann
b
, E.W.N. Glover
a
, A. Huss
c
a
Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
b
Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
c
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
8 February 2018
Accepted
23 April 2018
Available
online 26 April 2018
Editor:
G.F. Giudice
Keywords:
QCD
Jets
Collider
physics
NLO
and NNLO calculations
We compute the factorising second-order QCD corrections to the electroweak production of a Higgs
boson through vector boson fusion. Our calculation is fully differential in the kinematics of the Higgs
boson and of the final state jets, and uses the antenna subtraction method to handle infrared singular
configurations in the different parton-level contributions. Our results allow us to reassess the impact of
the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to electroweak Higgs-plus-three-jet production and of
the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to electroweak Higgs-plus-two-jet production.
The NNLO corrections are found to be limited in magnitude to around ±5% and are uniform in several
of the kinematical variables, displaying a kinematical dependence only in the transverse momenta and
rapidity separation of the two tagging jets.
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
The discovery of the Higgs boson at the CERN Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) [1] has initiated an intensive program of precision
measurements of the Higgs boson properties, and of its interac-
tions
with all other elementary particles. A large spectrum of Higgs
boson decay modes and production channels are being investigated
at the LHC. The Higgs boson can be produced at hadron collid-
ers [2]either
through its Yukawa coupling to the top quark (in
gluon fusion through a closed top quark loop or by associated
production with top quarks) or through its coupling to the elec-
troweak
gauge bosons. This electroweak coupling gives rise to two
production modes: associated production with a vector boson, and
vector boson fusion (VBF).
At
LHC energies, the VBF process is the second-largest inclu-
sive
production mode for Higgs bosons, amounting to about 10%
of the dominant gluon fusion process. The detailed experimental
study of the VBF production mode probes the electroweak coupling
structure of the Higgs boson, thereby testing the Higgs mechanism
of electroweak symmetry breaking. These studies do however re-
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail
addresses: j .m .cruz -martinez @durham .ac .uk (J. Cruz-Martinez),
thomas .gehrmann @uzh .ch (T. Gehrmann), e .w.n .glover @durham .ac .uk
(E.W.N. Glover),
alexander.huss @cern .ch (A. Huss).
quire that VBF events can be discriminated against other Higgs
boson production modes, especially against gluon fusion. This can
be accomplished by exploiting the fact that at leading-order (LO)
VBF production proceeds with an initial state configuration of two
quarks/anti-quarks each radiating a weak vector boson, which then
fuse to form the observed Higgs boson. The incoming quarks are
deflected and lead to energetic jets at large rapidities. The distinc-
tive
VBF signature is therefore given by Higgs-plus-two-jet produc-
tion,
with the jets being strongly separated in rapidity, and forming
a di-jet system of high invariant mass. These requirements can be
formulated in a set of VBF cuts [3,4]ensuring an event selection
that enhances VBF events while suppressing the other production
modes.
Perturbative
corrections to Higgs boson production via VBF
(electroweak Higgs-plus-two-jet production) have been derived at
next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD [5–8] and in the electroweak
theory [9]. To optimise the VBF event selection cuts, one would
also like to have a reliable description of extra jet activity in the
VBF process. To this end, NLO QCD corrections have also been
obtained for electroweak Higgs-plus-three-jet production [10–12].
Next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the in-
clusive
VBF Higgs production cross section were found to be very
small [13], they are further improved by third-order (N3LO) cor-
rections [14].
However, more sizable NNLO QCD effects were ob-
served
for fiducial cross sections and differential distributions in
the VBF Higgs-plus-two-jet production process [15]. The latter cal-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.04.046
0370-2693/
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.