history: A tool for fully-differential cross sections at next-to-next-to-leading order

Abstract

The software $\texttt{history}$ is designed to calculate fully-differential cross sections for colour-singlet production processes in hadronic collision up to next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. It is based on the fully-local nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme, whose implementation is entirely process independent. This allows the program to be readily applied to arbitrary colour-singlet production processes, provided the corresponding process-dependent matrix elements are supplied. In the current release, we include matrix elements for Higgs production via gluon fusion, $pp\to H+X$, and for associated Higgs production with a heavy electroweak vector boson through the Drell-Yan-like Higgs-Strahlung mechanism, $pp\to V^\ast +X \to VH+X$, with $V\in\{W,Z\}$.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: Feynman diagrams for (a) Higgs production via gluon fusion in the heavy-top limit and (b) Drell-Yan-like production of a Higgs boson in association with a massive weak gauge boson $V\in\{W,Z\}$. The crossed vertex represents an effective vertex where a Higgs boson couples to a pair of gluons through a loop with infinitely heavy top quarks. These Feynman diagrams are created with FeynGamefeyngamefeyngame2feyngame3.
• Figure 2: Transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs boson at NNLO QCD precision. The upper panel shows the spectra computed with history (blue) and NNLOJET (green). The lower panel illustrates their ratios normalised to the NNLOJET distribution. The shaded bands indicate the statistical Monte Carlo uncertainties.
• Figure 3: Invariant mass spectra for (a) $pp \to WH+X$ and (b) $pp \to ZH+X$ at NNLO QCD precision. The upper panels show the spectra computed with history (blue) and vh@nnlo (green). The lower panels illustrate their ratios normalised to the vh@nnlo distribution. The shaded bands indicate the statistical Monte Carlo uncertainties.