Radiative QCD backgrounds to exclusive H -> bb(bar) production: radiation from the screening gluon

TL;DR

This paper calculates the background from gluon radiation in exclusive Higgs production at the LHC, finding it negligible compared to main backgrounds, thus supporting the feasibility of clean Higgs measurements in this channel.

Contribution

It provides the first explicit calculation of gluon radiation backgrounds from the screening gluon in exclusive Higgs production, demonstrating their insignificance.

Findings

Gluon radiation background is much lower than main irreducible background.

The calculated background can be neglected in experimental analyses.

Supports the viability of exclusive Higgs measurements at the LHC.

Abstract

Central exclusive Higgs boson production, pp -> p+H+p, at the LHC can provide important complementary contribution to the comprehensive study of the Higgs sector in a remarkably clean topology. The bb(bar) Higgs decay mode is especially attractive, and for certain BSM scenarios may even become the discovery channel. Obvious requirements for the success of such exclusive measurements are strongly suppressed and controllable backgrounds. One potential source of background comes from additional gluon radiation which leads to a three-jet bb(bar)g final state. We perform an explicit calculation of the subprocesses gg -> q(bar)qg, gg -> ggg in the case of `internal' gluon radiation from the spectator, t-channel screening gluon, when the two incoming active t-channel gluons form a colour octet. We find that the overall contribution of this source of background is orders of magnitude lower than that caused by the main irreducible background resulting from the gg^{PP} -> b(bar)b subprocess. Therefore, this background contribution can be safely neglected.