We consider extensions of the Standard Model with a number of additional heavy quarks which couple to the Higgs boson via top-like Yukawa interactions. We construct an effective theory valid for a Higgs boson mass which is lighter than twice the lightest heavy quark mass and compute the corresponding Wilson coefficient through NNLO. We present numerical results for the gluon fusion cross-section at the Tevatron for an extension of the Standard Model with a fourth generation of heavy quarks. The gluon fusion cross-section is enhanced by a factor of roughly 9 with respect to the Standard Model value. Tevatron experimental data can place stringent exclusion limits for the Higgs mass in this model.
Top-quark pair production at the LHC is directly sensitive to the gluon PDF at large x. While total cross-section data is already included in several PDF determinations, differential distributions are not, because the corresponding NNLO calculations have become available only recently. In this work we study the impact on the large-x gluon of top-quark pair differential distributions measured by ATLAS and CMS at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV. Our analysis, performed in the NNPDF3.0 framework at NNLO accuracy, allows us to identify the optimal combination of LHC top-quark pair measurements that maximize the …
We discuss how the UN2LOPS scheme for matching NNLO calculations to parton showers can be applied to processes with large higher-order perturbative QCD corrections. We focus on Higgs-boson production through gluon fusion as an example. We also present an NNLO fixed-order event generator for this reaction.
We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion followed by its decay to a $b\bar b$ pair or to a pair of leptonically-decaying $W$ bosons. Our calculation allows us to compute realistic fiducial cross sections and assess the impact of fiducial cuts applied to the Higgs boson decay products on the magnitude of QCD radiative corrections in weak boson fusion.
We present results for the $Z$-boson and $W$-boson transverse momentum ($p_T$) distributions for large $p_T$ at LHC and Tevatron energies. We calculate complete next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD corrections as well as soft-gluon corrections at next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) to the differential cross section. The NNLO soft-gluon contributions are derived from next-to-next-to-leading-logarithm (NNLL) resummation at two loops. We find enhancements of the $p_T$ distributions and reductions of the scale dependence when the NNLO corrections are included.
We present the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to dijet production in the purely gluonic channel retaining the full dependence on the number of colours. The sub-leading colour contribution in this channel first appears at NNLO and, as expected, increases the NNLO correction by around 10% and exhibits a pT dependence, rising from 8% at low pT to 15% at high pT . The present calculation demonstrates the utility of the antenna subtraction method for computing the full colour NNLO corrections to dijet production at the Large Hadron Collider.
Using the recently derived NNLO cross sections \cite{Czakon:2013goa}, we provide NNLO+NNLL theoretical predictions for top quark pair production based on all the available NNLO PDF sets, and compare them with the most precise LHC and Tevatron data. In this comparison we study in detail the PDF uncertainty and the scale, $m_t$ and $α_s$ dependence of the theoretical predictions for each PDF set. Next, we observe that top quark pair production provides a powerful direct constraint on the gluon PDF at large $x$, and include Tevatron and LHC top pair data consistently into a global NNLO PDF fit. W…
We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD correction to the total inclusive top pair production cross-section in the reaction qg \to t\bar t + X. We find moderate O(1%) correction to central values at both Tevatron and LHC. The scale variation of the cross-section remains unchanged at the Tevatron and is significantly reduced at the LHC. We find that recently introduced approximation based on the high-energy limit of the top pair cross-section significantly deviates from the exact result. The results derived in the present work are included in version 1.4 of the program Top++. Work towa…
A next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD calculation of gluon distribution function at small-x is presented. The gluon distribution function is explored analytically in the DGLAP approach by a Taylor expansion at small x as two first order partial differential equations in two variables : Bjorken x and t (t = ln(Q2/Λ2) ). We have solved the system of equations at LO, NLO and NNLO respectively by the La- granges method. The resulting analytical expressions are compared with the available global PDF sets as well as with the results of the BDM model. We have further performed a \c{hi}2 test to …
We present an analytic three-loop result for the leading color contribution to the Higgs-gluon form factor in QCD. The leading color contribution is given at next-to-next-to-leading order by the $N_c^2$-term in QCD with $N_c$ colors. The main focus of this article lies on the evaluation of the relevant Feynman integrals with a special emphasis on the elliptic sector.
We construct a resummation at partial next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy for hadronic top-quark pair production near partonic threshold, including simultaneously soft-gluon and Coulomb corrections, and use this result to obtain approximate next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order predictions for the total top-quark pair-production cross section at the LHC. We generalize a required one-loop potential in non-relativistic QCD to the colour-octet case and estimate the remaining unknown two-loop potentials and three-loop anomalous dimensions. We obtain a moderate correction of $1.5\%…
The fully differential computation of the hadronic production cross section of a Higgs boson via bottom quarks is presented at NNLO in QCD. Several differential distributions with their corresponding scale uncertainties are presented for the 8 TeV LHC. This is the first application of the method of non-linear mappings for NNLO differential calculations at hadron colliders.
The fully-differential beam function (dBF) is a universal ingredient in resummed predictions of hadron collider observables that probe the full kinematics of the incoming parton from each colliding proton -- the virtuality and transverse momentum as well as the light-cone momentum fraction $x$. In this paper we compute the matching coefficients between the unpolarized gluon dBF and the usual parton distribution functions (PDFs) at the two-loop order. For observables probing both the virtuality and transverse momentum of incoming gluons, our results provide the part of the NNLO singular cross s…
We calculate in this paper the perturbative gluon transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions (TMDPDFs) and fragmentation functions (TMDFFs) using the exponential regulator for rapidity divergences. We obtain results for both unpolarized and linearly polarized distributions through next-to-next-to leading order in strong coupling constant, and through ${\cal O}(ε^2)$ in dimensional regulator (finding discrepancy for the linearly polarized gluon TMDPDFs with a previous result in the literature). We find a nontrivial momentum conservation sum rule for the linearly polarized compo…
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the double real radiation infrared singularities present in gluonic scattering amplitudes at next-to-next-to-leading order. The antenna subtraction framework has been successfully applied to the calculation of NNLO corrections to the 3-jet cross section and related event shape distributions in electron-positron annihilation. Here we consider processes with two coloured particles in the initial state, and in particular two-jet production at hadron colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We construct a subtraction term that describes th…
We investigate the impact of the high precision ATLAS and CMS 7 TeV measurements of inclusive jet production on the MMHT global PDF analysis at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). This is made possible by the recent completion of the long-term project to calculate the NNLO corrections to the hard cross section. We find that a good description of the ATLAS data is not possible with the default treatment of experimental systematic errors, and develop a simplified solution that retains the dominant physical information of the data. We then investigate the fit quality and the impact on the gluon…
Effects from a finite top quark mass on the H+n-jet cross section through gluon fusion are studied for $n=0/n\ge 1$ at NNLO/NLO QCD. For this purpose, sub-leading terms in $1/m_t$ are calculated. We show that the asymptotic expansion of the jet-vetoed cross section at NNLO is very well behaved and that the heavy-top approximation is valid at the five permille level up to jet-veto cuts of 300 GeV. For the inclusive Higgs+jet rate, we introduce a matching procedure that allows for a reliable prediction of the top-mass effects using the expansion in $1/m_t$. The quality of the effective field the…
The measurement of the Higgs pair production via vector boson fusion can be used to test the trilinear Higgs self-coupling and the $VVHH$ $(V=Z,W)$ quartic gauge interactions. In this paper we present the calculations of the next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to the SM Higgs boson pair production via vector boson fusion at hadron colliders with the center-of-mass energy of $14$, $33$, and $100 {\rm TeV}$ by using the structure function approach, and study the residual uncertainties from the factorization/renormalization scale, parton distribution functions and $α_s$ on the total cro…
The production of Higgs bosons in weak boson fusion has the second largest cross section among Higgs-production processes at the LHC. As such, this process plays an important role in detailed studies of Higgs interactions with vector bosons. In this paper we extend the available description of Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion by considering anomalous $HVV$ interactions and NNLO QCD radiative corrections at the same time. We find that, while leading order QCD predictions are too uncertain to allow for detailed studies of the anomalous couplings, NLO QCD results are sufficiently preci…
We consider the Higgs boson production in the gluon-fusion channel to next-to-next-to-leading order within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In particular, we present analytical results for the matching coefficient of the effective theory and study its influence on the total production cross section in the limit where the masses of all MSSM particles coincide. For supersymmetric masses below 500 GeV it is possible to find parameters leading to a significant enhancement of the Standard Model cross section, the $K$-factors, however, change only marginally.
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the infrared singularities present in QCD scattering amplitudes at next-to-next-to-leading order. In particular, infrared singularities due to double-real radiation and real-virtual radiation are subtracted from the QCD matrix elements using antenna functions which are then integrated analytically and added to the double-virtual contribution. Here we consider two-jet production at NNLO at hadron colliders and construct subtraction terms for the double-real and real-virtual channels that describe the single and double unresolved configurations of…
We construct an approximate expression for the cross section for Higgs production in gluon fusion at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO) in $α_s$ with finite top mass. We argue that an accurate approximation can be constructed by exploiting the analiticity of the Mellin space cross section, and the information on its singularity structure coming from large N (soft gluon, Sudakov) and small N (high energy, BFKL) all order resummations. We support our argument with an explicit comparison of the approximate and the exact expressions up to the highest (NNLO) order at which the latter a…
In this work we have suggested a solution of the Gribov-Levin-Ryskin-Mueller-Qiu (GLR-MQ) nonlinear evolution equation at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). The range of $Q^2$ in which we have solved the GLR-MQ equation is Regge region of the range $5 GeV^2 \leq Q^2 \leq 25 GeV^2$ and so we have incorporated the Regge like behavior to obtain $Q^2$ evolution of gluon distribution function $G(x, Q^2)$. We have also checked the sensitivity of our results for different values of correlation radius (R) between two interacting gluons, viz. $R=2 GeV^{-1}$ and $R= 5 GeV^{-1}$ as well as for differe…
We present for first time the computation at large $q_T$ (or small $b_T$) matching coefficients of Transverse Momentum Dependent Parton Distribution Function (TMDPDF) for linearly polarised to the integrated gluon distribution at next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO). The computation is performed using the modified $δ$-regulator for rapidity divergences and dimensional regularization. This TMDPDF matriz element presnts phenomenological interest in two kind of processes. The factorization of the Higgs production transverse momentum ($q_T$) distribution through gluon-gluon fusion and the quarkoni…
Weak vector boson fusion provides a unique channel to directly probe the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking at hadron colliders. We present a method that allows to calculate total cross sections to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD for an arbitrary V* V* -> X process, the so-called structure function approach. By discussing the case of Higgs production in detail, we estimate several classes of previously neglected contributions and we argue that such method is accurate at a precision level well above the typical residual scale and PDF uncertainties at NNLO. Predictions for cr…
We consider the formalism of small-x effective action for reggeized gluons, Gribov (Sov Phys JETP 26:414, 1968), Lipatov (Nucl Phys B 452:369, 1995; Phys Rep 286:131, 1997; Subnucl Ser 49:131, 2013, Int J Mod Phys Conf Ser 39:1560082, 2015; Int J Mod Phys A 31(28/29):1645011, 2016; EPJ Web Conf 125:01010, 2016) and Lipatov et al. (Sov J Nucl Phys 23:338, 1976; Sov Phys JETP 45:199, 1977; Sov J Nucl Phys 28:822, 1978), and, following to the approach developed in Bondarenko et al. (Eur Phys J C 77(8):527, 2017, Eur Phys J C 77(9):630, 2017), calculate the classical gluon field to NNLO precision …
When an energetic parton propagates in a hot and dense QCD medium it loses energy by elastic scatterings or by medium-induced gluon radiation. The gluon radiation spectrum is suppressed at high frequency due to the LPM effect and encompasses two regimes that are known analytically: at high frequencies $ω>ω_c = \hat q L^2$, where $\hat q $ is the jet quenching transport coefficient and $L$ the length of the medium, the spectrum is dominated by a single hard scattering, whereas the regime $ω<ω_c$ is dominated by multiple low momentum transfers. In this paper, we extend a recent approach (dubbed …
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the double virtual infrared singularities present in gluonic scattering amplitudes at next-to-next-to-leading order. In previous papers, we derived the subtraction terms that rendered (a) the double real radiation tree-level process finite in the single and double unresolved regions of phase space and (b) the mixed single real radiation one-loop process both finite and well behaved in the unresolved regions of phase space. Here, we show how to construct the double virtual subtraction term using antenna functions with both initial- and final-stat…
We study in details the parameterizations of the nuclear parton distributions at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) of $α_s$. In low $x$ and $Q_0^2$, we observe negative gluon distribution at this order which signals the saturation condition or the quark-gluon plasma condition. Our study also shows the gluon distribution at (NNLO) is less than next-to-leading order (NLO) of $α_s$, and the sea quark distribution at (NNLO) is larger than (NLO).
We include finite top- and bottom-mass effects in the next-to-next-to-leading order parton shower (NNLOPS) event generator for inclusive Higgs boson production in gluon fusion based upon the POWHEG+MiNLO approach. Since fixed-order results for quark-mass effects only reach NLO accuracy, we add them to the NNLOPS generator at that accuracy. We explore uncertainties related to the unknown all-order logarithmic structure of bottom-mass effects by comparing the assumption of full exponentiation to no exponentiation at all. Phenomenological results showing the effects of finite quark-masses in the …
We present the precision predictions on the pair production of light, $CP$-even Higgs in weak vector boson fusion (VBF) up to the QCD next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) at hadron colliders within the $CP$-conserving type-II two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM(II)) by adopting the structure function approach. We investigate the model parameter dependence, residual uncertainties from the factorization/renormalization scale, PDFs and $α_s$ on the integrated cross section at the QCD NNLO, and find that the NNLO QCD corrections can reduce the scale uncertainty significantly. By analyzing the kinematic …
We report the calculation of next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections in the purely gluonic channel to dijet production and related observables at hadron colliders. Our result represents the first NNLO calculation of a massless jet observable at hadron colliders, and opens the path towards precision QCD phenomenology with the LHC.
We detail a simulation of Higgs boson production via gluon fusion, accurate at next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling, including matching to a parton shower, yielding a fully exclusive, hadron-level description of the final-state. The approach relies on the POWHEG method for merging the NLO Higgs plus jet cross-section with the parton shower, and on the MINLO method to simultaneously achieve NLO accuracy for inclusive Higgs boson production. The NNLO accuracy is reached by a reweighting procedure making use of the HNNLO program.
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the mixed real-virtual infrared singularities present in gluonic scattering amplitudes at next-to-next-to-leading order. In a previous paper, we derived the subtraction term that rendered the double real radiation tree-level process finite in the single and double unresolved regions of phase space. Here, we show how to construct the real-virtual subtraction term using antenna functions with both initial- and final-state partons which removes the explicit infrared poles present in the one-loop amplitude, as well as the implicit singularities that…
The virtuality-dependent beam function is a universal ingredient in the resummation for observables probing the virtuality of incoming partons, including N-jettiness and beam thrust. We compute the gluon beam function at two-loop order. Together with our previous results for the two-loop quark beam function, this completes the full set of virtuality-dependent beam functions at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). Our results are required to account for all collinear ISR effects to the N-jettiness event shape through N^3LL order. We present numerical results for both the quark and gluon beam f…
