Next-to-leading order jet distributions for Higgs boson production via weak-boson fusion

Abstract

The weak-boson fusion process is expected to provide crucial information on Higgs boson couplings at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The achievable statistical accuracy demands comparison with next-to-leading order QCD calculations, which are presented here in the form of a fully flexible parton Monte Carlo program. QCD corrections are determined for jet distributions and are shown to be modest, of the order of 5%--10% in most cases, but reaching 30% occasionally. Remaining scale uncertainties range from the order of 5% or less for distributions to below $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2%$ for the Higgs boson cross section in typical weak-boson fusion search regions.