Abstract
We present a detailed study of Higgs boson production in association with a single top quark at the LHC, at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD. We consider total and differential cross sections, at the parton level as well as by matching short distance events to parton showers, for both t-channel and s-channel production. We provide predictions relevant for the LHC at 13 TeV together with a thorough evaluation of the residual uncertainties coming from scale variation, parton distributions, strong coupling constant and heavy quark masses. In addition, for t-channel production, we compare results as obtained in the 4-flavour and 5-flavour schemes, pinning down the most relevant differences between them. Finally, we study the sensitivity to a non-standard-model relative phase between the Higgs couplings to the top quark and to the weak bosons.
Highlights
The first Run of the LHC has already collected compelling evidence that the scalar particle observed at 125 GeV is the one predicted by the Brout–Englert–Higgs symmetry breaking mechanism [1,2] of SU (2)L × U (1)Y as implemented in the Standard Model (SM) [3]
We present a detailed study of Higgs boson production in association with a single top quark at the LHC, at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD
We describe the settings of the calculation, present results in the SM for total rates up to next-toleading order (NLO) in QCD and their uncertainties, and show relevant differential distributions at NLO matched to a parton shower
Summary
The first Run of the LHC has already collected compelling evidence that the scalar particle observed at 125 GeV is the one predicted by the Brout–Englert–Higgs symmetry breaking mechanism [1,2] of SU (2)L × U (1)Y as implemented in the Standard Model (SM) [3]. While characterised by a rather small cross section with respect to the main single Higgs production channels (gluon–gluon fusion, vector boson fusion and associated production, and ttH ), Higgs and single-top associated production features unique aspects that make this process interesting for Higgs characterisation [8,9] It is among the very few processes relevant for LHC phenomenology (together with H → γ γ and gg → Z H ) to be sensitive to the relative size and phase. The aim of the first part of this work is to provide accurate SM predictions including QCD corrections at next-toleading order (NLO) for t- and s-channel Higgs production in association with a single top quark, as well as reliable estimates for the residual uncertainties in rates and distributions.
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