Top-Bottom Interference Contribution to Fully Inclusive Higgs Production

Area of Science:

• High Energy Physics
• Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD)
• Particle Physics

Background:

• Higgs boson production cross sections are critical for understanding electroweak symmetry breaking.
• Precise theoretical predictions are necessary to interpret experimental results at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
• Bottom-quark mass effects, though power-suppressed, can impact the accuracy of these predictions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the top-bottom interference contribution to the fully inclusive Higgs production cross section.
• To determine this contribution at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD.
• To reduce leading theory uncertainties in Higgs cross-section calculations.

Main Methods:

• Perturbative QCD calculations at NNLO.
• Inclusion of bottom-quark mass effects in the calculation.
• Evaluation of the interference term between top and bottom quark contributions.

Main Results:

• The total top-bottom interference effect at 13 TeV is -1.99(1) +0.30 -0.15 pb.
• The pure O(α_{s}^{4}) correction is 0.43 pb.
• This result quantifies a significant source of theoretical uncertainty.

Conclusions:

• The top-bottom interference is a non-negligible contribution to Higgs production.
• Accurate calculations of these effects are essential for precise Higgs cross-section predictions.
• This work helps to resolve leading theory uncertainties in Higgs physics.