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NLO QCD corrections to the electroweak production of a Higgs boson pair in the quark-antiquark channel

Marco Bonetti, Gudrun Heinrich, Philipp Rendler, William J. Torres Bobadilla

TL;DR

This work addresses Higgs boson pair production in the quark–antiquark channel, where the leading order is loop‑mediated by electroweak bosons, by computing the NLO QCD corrections. The authors derive analytic two‑loop form factors using IBP reduction and canonical differential equations, and implement the results in a Powheg‑Box‑V2 framework with real amplitudes generated by GoSam. They find that the qq̄ contribution to the total cross section is small compared to gluon fusion, but can alter differential distributions by up to about 10%, particularly near the Higgs pair production threshold, making this contribution relevant for LHC analyses. The study also assesses bottom‑quark effects and provides a public code to enable precise, differential predictions that can aid in constraining the Higgs self‑coupling and the Higgs potential through comparison with data.

Abstract

Higgs boson pair production in the massless quark-antiquark channel proceeds at leading order (LO) via electroweak boson loops. We calculate the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to this process. For the corresponding two-loop amplitudes, an analytic representation has been achieved. Even though the size of this contribution at the level of total cross sections is below 1% compared to the LO gluon channel, the effect on differential observables can be in the 10% range and therefore this contribution should be taken into account when comparing to LHC data.

NLO QCD corrections to the electroweak production of a Higgs boson pair in the quark-antiquark channel

TL;DR

This work addresses Higgs boson pair production in the quark–antiquark channel, where the leading order is loop‑mediated by electroweak bosons, by computing the NLO QCD corrections. The authors derive analytic two‑loop form factors using IBP reduction and canonical differential equations, and implement the results in a Powheg‑Box‑V2 framework with real amplitudes generated by GoSam. They find that the qq̄ contribution to the total cross section is small compared to gluon fusion, but can alter differential distributions by up to about 10%, particularly near the Higgs pair production threshold, making this contribution relevant for LHC analyses. The study also assesses bottom‑quark effects and provides a public code to enable precise, differential predictions that can aid in constraining the Higgs self‑coupling and the Higgs potential through comparison with data.

Abstract

Higgs boson pair production in the massless quark-antiquark channel proceeds at leading order (LO) via electroweak boson loops. We calculate the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to this process. For the corresponding two-loop amplitudes, an analytic representation has been achieved. Even though the size of this contribution at the level of total cross sections is below 1% compared to the LO gluon channel, the effect on differential observables can be in the 10% range and therefore this contribution should be taken into account when comparing to LHC data.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 27 equations, 3 figures, 3 tables)

This paper contains 13 sections, 27 equations, 3 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Scattering amplitudes
  3. General structure
  4. LO & virtual NLO amplitudes
  5. Real NLO amplitudes
  6. Master Integrals
  7. Mathematical framework
  8. Amplitude evaluation
  9. Phenomenological results
  10. Differential distributions
  11. Bottom quark effects
  12. Conclusions
  13. Canonical DEQ for A^(1)

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Two-loop top sectors. Massless particles are indicated by straight lines, particles with mass $m_V$ by wavy lines, and particles with mass $m_H$ by dashed lines.
  • Figure 2: Invariant mass distribution of the Higgs pair (top left), transverse momentum distribution (top right) and rapidity distribution (bottom) of a single Higgs boson at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{S} = 13.6\,\textup{TeV}$. The error bands represent the scale uncertainties of the quark-antiquark channel and the error bars indicate the statistical uncertainties from the Monte Carlo integration.
  • Figure 3: Effect of initial state bottom quarks on the invariant mass distribution of the Higgs boson pair (left) and transverse momentum distribution of a single Higgs boson (right). The error bands represent the scale uncertainties of the quark-antiquark channel while the error bars depict the statistical error.