Abstract
We present a computation of NNLO QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson in association with a $W$ boson at the LHC followed by the decay of the Higgs boson to a $b\bar{b}$ pair. At variance with previous NNLO QCD studies of the same process, we treat $b$ quarks as massive. An important advantage of working with massive $b$ quarks is that it makes the use of flavor jet algorithms unnecessary and allows us to employ conventional jet algorithms to define $b$ jets. We compare NNLO QCD descriptions of the associated $WH(b\bar{b})$ production with massive and massless $b$ quarks and also contrast them with the results provided by parton showers. We find ${\cal O}(5\%)$ differences in fiducial cross sections computed with massless and massive $b$ quarks. We also observe that much larger differences between massless and massive results, as well as between fixed-order and parton-shower results, can arise in selected kinematic distributions.
Highlights
We find Oð5%Þ differences in fiducial cross sections computed with massless and massive b quarks
Detailed investigation of Higgs boson production in association with a W boson is an important part of the LHC research program that aims at a comprehensive exploration of Higgs boson properties and electroweak symmetry breaking [1,2,3,4,5]
II we briefly review the NNLO QCD computation of radiative corrections to pp → WH [21] and H → bb [27] and discuss modifications needed in the computation of NNLO QCD corrections to the production process to accommodate massive b quarks
Summary
Detailed investigation of Higgs boson production in association with a W boson is an important part of the LHC research program that aims at a comprehensive exploration of Higgs boson properties and electroweak symmetry breaking [1,2,3,4,5]. [21] to include b-quark mass effects in the theoretical description of Higgs production in association with a vector boson To this end, we combined the recent NNLO QCD description of the Higgs boson decay into two massive b quarks [27]1 with the computation of NNLO QCD corrections to the production process [21,29] which required small modifications because of the b-quark mass. It is interesting to compare fixed-order and parton-shower results with each other This has already been done in Ref. The NNLO QCD computation with massive b quarks described in this paper allows us to remedy this problem and compare fixed-order and parton-shower predictions using identical jet algorithms. A detailed discussion of modifications required to accommodate massive b quarks in the NNLO QCD computation of Ref. [21] can be found in the Appendixes A, B, and C
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