HPro: A NLO Monte-Carlo for Higgs production via gluon fusion with finite heavy quark masses

TL;DR

This paper presents HPro, a Monte Carlo tool that accurately computes Higgs production via gluon fusion at NLO, incorporating finite top and bottom quark mass effects to improve precision over previous infinite mass approximations.

Contribution

HPro is the first Monte Carlo program to include full finite heavy quark mass effects at NLO for differential Higgs production calculations.

Findings

Finite quark mass effects significantly impact Higgs production predictions.

HPro can correct existing NNLO calculations for finite mass effects.

The approach enhances the precision of theoretical predictions in Higgs physics.

Abstract

We compute fully differential next-to-leading order QCD cross-sections for Higgs boson production via gluon fusion in the Standard Model. We maintain the full dependence of the cross-sections on the top and bottom quark mass. We find that finite quark mass effects are important given the achieved precision of QCD predictions for gluon fusion. Our Monte-Carlo program, HPro, can correct existing NNLO fully differential calculations, which employ the approximation of an infinitely heavy top and a vanishing bottom quark Yukawa coupling, for heavy quark finite mass effects through NLO.