Precision Calculations for Associated WH and ZH Production at Hadron Colliders

TL;DR

This work provides state-of-the-art cross-section predictions for associated Higgs production with $W$ or $Z$ bosons at hadron colliders by combining NNLO QCD corrections to the Drell–Yan–like VH process with the gg to ZH contribution and electroweak ${\\cal O}(\\alpha)$ corrections. The NNLO corrections yield a net cross-section increase of about $5$–$10\\%$ and substantially reduce renormalization/factorization scale uncertainties, with PDF uncertainties discussed. Electroweak corrections are negative, typically about $-5\\%$ to $-10\\%$ depending on the input scheme, further sharpening the predictions. The resulting predictions provide improved precision for Higgs analyses in the VH channels at both the Tevatron and LHC.

Abstract

Recently the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections and the electroweak O(alpha) corrections to the Higgs-strahlung processes ppbar/pp -> WH/ZH + X have been calculated. Both types of corrections are of the order of 5-10%. In this article the various corrections are briefly discussed and combined into state-of-the-art predictions for the cross sections. The theoretical uncertainties from renormalization/factorization scales and from the parton distribution functions are discussed.