Simulating b -associated production of Z and Higgs bosons with the Sherpa event generator

Abstract

We compare four-- and five--flavour scheme predictions for $b$-associated production of $Z$ and Higgs bosons. The results are obtained with \Sherpa's MC@NLOimplementation for the four--flavour scheme, treating the $b$'s as massive, and with multijet merging at leading and next-to leading order for the five--flavour schemes. Comparison with data for $Z+b(\bar{b})$ production at the $7$ TeV LHC exhibit strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches and are used to validate predictions for $b$-associated Higgs-boson production at the 13 TeV Run II.