Mixed QCD-electroweak contributions to Higgs-plus-dijet production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper calculates interference effects in Higgs plus dijet production at the LHC, including previously unconsidered diagrams, and finds that their impact on the signal is negligible due to small cross sections and cancellations.

Contribution

It extends existing calculations by including a new class of diagrams and develops a stable Monte Carlo program for detailed analysis.

Findings

Interference effects have different kinematic distributions from vector boson fusion.

The interference contributions are small and largely cancel out among quark flavors.

Overall impact on the Higgs signal is negligible across phase space.

Abstract

We present a calculation of interference effects in Hjj production via gluon fusion and via vector boson fusion, respectively, beyond tree level. We reproduce results recently discussed in the literature, but go beyond this calculation by including a class of diagrams not considered previously. Special care is taken in developing a numerically stable and flexible parton level Monte-Carlo program which allows us to study cross sections and kinematic distributions within experimentally relevant selection cuts. Loop-induced interference contributions are found to exhibit kinematical distributions different in shape from vector boson fusion. Due to the small interference cross section and cancelation among different quark flavor contributions their impact on the signal process is found to be negligible in all regions of phase space, however.