Dominant next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs plus three jet production in vector-boson fusion

TL;DR

This work delivers the dominant NLO QCD corrections for Higgs production via vector-boson fusion in association with three jets (Hjjj) and implements them in a flexible parton-level Monte Carlo. By omitting color-suppressed pentagon and hexagon diagrams and certain interference terms, the authors exploit the color-singlet nature and kinematic suppression of t-channel gluon exchange to focus on the leading contributions, regulated with Catani-Seymour dipole subtraction. They show that while total cross sections experience modest NLO corrections, several kinematic distributions receive noticeable shape changes, and scale uncertainties shrink significantly at NLO. Importantly, the central jet veto probability is predicted with around 1% perturbative uncertainty, enabling a precise determination of Higgs survival probabilities and strengthening the viability of VBF-based Higgs coupling measurements at the LHC.

Abstract

We present the calculation of the dominant next to leading order QCD corrections to Higgs boson production in association with three jets via vector boson fusion in the form of a NLO parton-level Monte Carlo program. QCD corrections to integrated cross sections are modest, while the shapes of some kinematical distributions change appreciably at NLO. Scale uncertainties are shown to be reduced at NLO for the total cross section and for distributions. We consider a central jet veto at the LHC and analyze the veto probability for typical vector boson fusion cuts. Scale uncertainties of the veto probability are sufficiently small at NLO for precise Higgs coupling measurements at the LHC.