Higgs Transverse Momentum Distribution Research Articles

Threshold resummation of transverse momentum distributions beyond next-to-leading log

We derive a general expression for the threshold resummation of transverse momentum distributions for processes with a colorless final state, by suitably generalizing the renormalization-group based approach to threshold resummation previously pursued by two of us. The ensuing expression holds to all logarithmic orders, and it can be used to extend available results in the literature, which only hold up to the next-to-leading log (NLL) level. We check agreement of our result with the existing NLL result, as well as against the known fixed next-to-leading order results for the Higgs transverse momentum distribution in gluon fusion, and we provide explicit expressions at the next-to-next-to-leading log level.

The leading jet transverse momentum in inclusive jet production and with a loose jet veto

We study the transverse momentum of the leading jet in the limit where the jet radius is small, R ≪ 1. We introduce the leading-jet function to calculate this cross section for an inclusive jet sample, and the subleading-jet function when a loose veto on additional jets is imposed, i.e. {}_{PTJ}{underset{sim }{>}}_{P_T^{mathrm{veto}}} . These jet functions are calculated at next-to-leading order in QCD and the resummation of jet radius logarithms is explored. We present phenomenological results for Higgs + 1 jet production, for both the jet and Higgs transverse momentum distribution. We find that, while the R ≪ 1 limit of the cross section provides a good description of the full NLO result, even for values as large as R = 0.8, simply retaining the leading logarithm at this order does not. Indeed, the NLO contribution to the hard function and, to a lesser extent, non-logarithmic corrections to the jet function are sizable and must be included to obtain the correct cross section. In the inclusive cross section we find that the {alpha}_s^2 ln2R corrections are several precent, while in exclusive cross sections at large pT ,J and small R they can reach 20%. However, it is not clear how important the resummation of these logarithms is, given the presence of other large corrections at NNLO.

Linearly polarized gluons at next-to-next-to leading order and the Higgs transverse momentum distribution

We calculate the small-b (or large-qT) matching of transverse momentum de- pendent (TMD) distribution for linearly polarized gluons to the integrated gluon distributions at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). This is the last missing part for the complete NNLO prediction of the Higgs spectrum within TMD factorization. We discuss the numerical impact of the correction so derived to the qT -differential cross-section for Higgs boson production and to the positivity bound for linearly polarized gluon transverse momentum distribution.

The HiggsTools handbook: a beginners guide to decoding the Higgs sector

This report summarises some of the activities of the HiggsTools initial training network working group in the period 2015–2017. The main goal of this working group was to produce a document discussing various aspects of state-of-the-art Higgs physics at the large hadron collider (LHC) in a pedagogic manner. The first part of the report is devoted to a description of phenomenological searches for new physics (NP) at the LHC. All of the available studies of the couplings of the new resonance discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments (Aad et al (ATLAS Collaboration) 2012 Phys. Lett. B 716 1–29; Chatrchyan et al (CMS Collaboration) 2012 Phys. Lett. B 716 30–61) conclude that it is compatible with the Higgs boson of the standard model (SM) within present precision. So far the LHC experiments have given no direct evidence for any physical phenomena that cannot be described by the SM. As the experimental measurements become more and more precise, there is a pressing need for a consistent framework in which deviations from the SM predictions can be computed precisely. Such a framework should be applicable to measurements in all sectors of particle physics, not only LHC Higgs measurements but also electroweak precision data, etc. We critically review the use of the κ-framework, fiducial and simplified template cross sections, effective field theories, pseudoobservables and phenomenological Lagrangians. Some of the concepts presented here are well known and were used already at the time of the large electron–positron collider (LEP) experiment. However, after years of theoretical and experimental development, these techniques have been refined, and we describe new tools that have been introduced in order to improve the comparison between theory and experimental data. In the second part of the report, we propose as a new and complementary observable for studying Higgs boson production at large transverse momentum in the case where the Higgs boson decays to two photons. The variable depends on measurements of the angular directions and rapidities of the two Higgs decay products rather than the energies, and exploits the information provided by the calorimeter in the detector. We show that, even without tracking information, the experimental resolution for is better than that of the transverse momentum of the photon pair, particularly at low transverse momentum. We make a detailed study of the phenomenology of the variable, contrasting the behaviour with the Higgs transverse momentum distribution using a variety of theoretical tools including event generators and fixed order perturbative computations. We consider the theoretical uncertainties associated with both and distributions. Unlike the transverse momentum distribution, the distribution is well predicted using the Higgs effective field theory in which the top quark is integrated out—even at large values of —thereby making this a better observable for extracting the parameters of the Higgs interaction. In contrast, the potential of the distribution as a probe of NP is rather limited, since although the overall rate is affected by the presence of additional heavy fields, the shape of the distribution is relatively insensitive to heavy particle thresholds.

Higgs bosons with large transverse momentum at the LHC

We compute the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of Higgs bosons with large transverse momentum p⊥≫2mt at the LHC. To accomplish this, we combine the two-loop amplitudes for processes gg→Hg, qg→Hq and qq¯→Hg, recently computed in the approximation of nearly massless top quarks, with the numerical calculation of the squared one-loop amplitudes for gg→Hgg, qg→Hqg and qq¯→Hgg processes. The latter computation is performed with OpenLoops. We find that the QCD corrections to the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at very high p⊥ are large but quite similar to the QCD corrections obtained for point-like Hgg coupling. Our result removes one of the largest sources of theoretical uncertainty in the description of high-p⊥ Higgs boson production and opens a way to use the high-p⊥ region to search for physics beyond the Standard Model.

Two-loop amplitudes for processes gg \u2192 Hg, qg \u2192 Hq and mathrm{q}overline{mathrm{q}}to mathrm{H}mathrm{g} at large Higgs transverse momentum

We compute the two-loop QCD corrections to amplitudes for processes gg → Hg, qg → Hq and qoverline{q}to Hg in the limit when the Higgs transverse momentum is larger than the top quark mass, p⊥ ≫ mt. These amplitudes are important ingredients for understanding higher-order QCD effects on Higgs transverse momentum distribution at large p⊥.

The Higgs transverse momentum distribution in gluon fusion as a multiscale problem

We consider Higgs production in gluon fusion and in particular the prediction of the Higgs transverse momentum distribution. We discuss the ambiguities affecting the matching procedure between fixed order matrix elements and the resummation to all orders of the terms enhanced by $\log(p_T^H/m_H)$ factors. Following a recent proposal (Grazzini et al., hep-ph/1306.4581), we argue that the gluon fusion process, computed considering two active quark flavors, is a multiscale problem from the point of view of the resummation of the collinear singular terms. We perform an analysis at parton level of the collinear behavior of the $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ real emission amplitudes; relying on the collinear singularities structure of the latter, we derive an upper limit to the range of transverse momenta where the collinear approximation is valid. This scale is then used as the value of the resummation scale in the analytic resummation framework or as the value of the $h$ parameter in the POWHEG-BOX code. A variation of this scale can be used to generate an uncertainty band associated to the matching procedure. Finally, we provide a phenomenological analysis in the Standard Model, in the Two Higgs Doublet Model and in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In the two latter cases, we provide an ansatz for the central value of the matching parameters not only for a Standard Model-like Higgs boson, but also for heavy scalars and in scenarios where the bottom quark may play the dominant role.

Resummation ambiguities in the Higgs transverse-momentum spectrum in the Standard Model and beyond

We study the prediction for the Higgs transverse momentum distribution in gluon fusion and focus on the problem of matching fixed- and all-order perturbative results. The main sources of matching ambiguities on this distribution are investigated by means of a twofold comparison. On the one hand, we present a detailed qualitative and quantitative comparison of two recently introduced algorithms for determining the matching scale. On the other hand, we apply the results of both methods to three widely used approaches for the resummation of logarithmically enhanced contributions at small transverse momenta: the MC@NLO and POWHEG Monte Carlo approaches, and analytic resummation. While the three sets of results are largely compatible in the low-pT region, they exhibit sizable differences at large pT. We show that these differences can be significantly reduced by suitable modifications of formally subleading terms in the Monte Carlo implementations. We apply our study to the Standard Model Higgs boson and to the neutral Higgs bosons of the Two-Higgs-Doublet Model for representative scenarios of the parameter space, where the top- and bottom-quark diagrams enter the cross section at different strength.

Overview of TMD Evolution

Transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs) appear in many scattering processes at high energy, from the semi-inclusive DIS experiments at a few GeV to the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC. Predictions for TMD observables crucially depend on TMD factorization, which in turn determines the TMD evolution of the observables with energy. In this contribution to SPIN2014 TMD factorization is outlined, including a discussion of the treatment of the nonperturbative region, followed by a summary of results on TMD evolution, mostly applied to azimuthal asymmetries.

The Higgs transverse momentum distribution at NNLL and its theoretical errors

In this letter, we present the NNLL-NNLO transverse momentum Higgs distribution arising from gluon fusion. In the regime $p_\perp\ll m_H$ we include the resummation of the large logs at next to next-to leading order and then match on to the $\alpha_s^2$ fixed order result near $p_\perp \sim m_h$. By utilizing the rapidity renormalization group (RRG) we are able to smoothly match between the resummed, small $p_\perp$ regime and the fixed order regime. We give a detailed discussion of the scale dependence of the result including an analysis of the rapidity scale dependence. Our central value differs from previous results, in the transition region as well as the tail, by an amount which is outside the error band. This difference is due to the fact that the RRG profile allows us to smoothly turn off the resummation.

Smoking Guns for On-Shell New Physics at the LHC

Using Tevatron bounds we derive upper limits on the LHC Higgs boson production rate assuming that no beyond the standard model (BSM) particles are being produced near their mass shell. A violation of these limits would constitute a smoking gun for light BSM particles. Furthermore, we demonstrate how R(T), the ratio of the partially integrated Higgs transverse momentum distribution to the inclusive rate, can also be used as a probe of light BSM particles. This ratio is insensitive to heavy virtual effects and is approximately model independent. The perturbative expansion for R(T) has reduced renormalization scale dependence, due to a cancellation of Wilson coefficients. A deviation from the SM value implies that light BSM particles are being produced near their mass shell. A model with colored scalars is used to investigate the model independence of R(T).

Threshold resummation for high-transverse-momentum Higgs production at the LHC

We study the resummation of large logarithmic QCD corrections for the process pp ->H+ X when the Higgs boson H is produced at high transverse momentum. The corrections arise near the threshold for partonic reaction and originate from soft gluon emission. We perform the all-order resummation at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy and match the resummed result with the next-to-leading order perturbative predictions. The effect of resummation on the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC is discussed.

Matrix-element corrections to parton shower simulations for Higgs hadroproduction

We implement matrix-element corrections to HERWIG parton shower simulations for Standard Model Higgs boson production at hadron colliders. We study the Higgs transverse momentum distribution and compare different versions of HERWIG and resummed calculations. The HERWIG results exhibit a remarkable improvement as many more events are generated at large transverse momentum after the inclusion of matrix-element corrections.

Non-perturbative effects and the resummed Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC

We investigate the form of the non-perturbative parameterization in both the impact parameter (b) space and transverse momentum (p_T) space resummation formalisms for the transverse momentum distribution of single massive bosons produced at hadron colliders. We propose to analyse data on Upsilon hadroproduction as a means of studying the non-perturbative contribution in processes with two gluons in the initial state. We also discuss the theoretical errors on the resummed Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC arising from the non-perturbative contribution.

At two loops in the large-Mt limit

We present a calculation of the two-loop helicity amplitudes for the processes H-->ggg and H-->gqqbar in the large-M_t limit. In this limit the calculation can be performed in terms of one-loop diagrams containing an effective Hgg operator. These amplitudes are required for the next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to the Higgs transverse momentum distribution and the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections to the Higgs production cross section via the gluon fusion mechanism.