The Higgs Working Group: Summary Report (2001)

TL;DR

The report surveys Higgs boson production and search strategies at TeV-scale hadron colliders within the SM and MSSM frameworks, emphasizing the need for precise cross sections to enable Higgs coupling determinations. It highlights major production modes—gluon fusion, weak-boson fusion, Higgs-strahlung, and associated production with heavy quarks—and summarizes key QCD advancements, including NNLO corrections to gluon fusion and NLO treatments of vector-boson fusion and related backgrounds. The document also discusses jet-veto techniques, direct Higgs production channels, and the high-energy behavior of Higgs +2 jet production, plus an update on MSSM Higgs mass calculations via FeynHiggs1.2 with a hybrid MSbar/on-shell renormalization that improves stability near phenomenologically relevant thresholds. Together, these findings advance the LHC’s potential for Higgs discovery and precision coupling measurements while identifying critical theoretical and methodological gaps, such as bottom-density factorization, jet-veto uncertainties, and the need for further NLO tools.

Abstract

Report of the Higgs working group for the Workshop `Physics at TeV Colliders', Les Houches, France, 21 May - 1 June 2001. It contains 7 separate sections: A. Theoretical Developments B. Higgs Searches at the Tevatron C. Experimental Observation of an invisible Higgs Boson at LHC D. Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson using Vector Boson Fusion at the LHC E. Study of the MSSM channel $A/H \to ττ$ at the LHC F. Searching for Higgs Bosons in $t\bar t H$ Production G. Studies of Charged Higgs Boson Signals for the Tevatron and the LHC

Figures (13)

• Figure 1: Typical diagram contributing to $gg\to \phi$ at lowest order.
• Figure 2: Scale dependence of the $K$-factor at the LHC. Lower curves for each pair are for $\mu_R = 2m_H$, $\mu_F=m_H/2$, upper curves are for $\mu_R =m_H/2$, $\mu_F=2m_H$. The $K$-factor is computed with respect to the LO cross section at $\mu_R = \mu_F =m_H$. From Ref. Harlander:2002wh.
• Figure 3: Expected relative error on the determination of $B\sigma$ for various Higgs search channels at the LHC with 200 fb$^{-1}\;$ of data Zeppenfeld:2000td. Solid lines are for inclusive Higgs production channels which are dominated by gluon fusion. Expectations for weak boson fusion are given by the dashed lines. Dotted lines are for $t\bar{t}H$ production with $H\to b\bar{b}$drollinger:2001ym (black) and $H\to W^+W^-$tth2ww (red) and assume 300 fb$^{-1}\;$ of data.
• Figure 4: Typical diagrams contributing to $gg\to \gamma\gamma jj$ at lowest order.
• Figure 5: Contributions of background systematic errors $\Delta\sigma$ to a measurement of $\sigma_H=\sigma B(H\to WW)$ in WBF. Shown, from bottom to top, are the effects of a 10% uncertainty of the $\tau\tau jj$ rate (dotted line), a 50% error on the QCD WWjj rate (blue dash-dotted), a 30% error on the electroweak WWjj rate (green dash-dotted), and a 10% error on $\sigma(t\bar{t}+$jets) (red dashes). The long-dashed line adds these errors in quadrature. For comparison, the solid line shows the expected statistical error for 200 fb$^{-1}\;$. The vertical line at 145 GeV separates analyses optimized for small wbf.wwlomh and large zeppenfeld-ww Higgs masses.