Assault on the NLO Wishlist: pp -> tt bb

TL;DR

This paper presents a next-to-leading order QCD calculation for pp -> ttbb, crucial for Higgs searches at the LHC, demonstrating advanced computational techniques and providing detailed distributions and cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive NLO calculation of pp -> ttbb using Helac-based tools, showcasing efficient virtual corrections and complete real emission treatment for LHC analyses.

Findings

Results agree with previous analyses where comparable.

Provides detailed differential distributions for the process.

Demonstrates the capability of Helac-based systems for complex LHC calculations.

Abstract

We present the results of a next-to-leading order calculation of QCD corrections to the production of an on-shell top-anti-top quark pair in association with two flavored b-jets. Besides studying the total cross section and its scale dependence, we give several differential distributions. Where comparable, our results agree with a previous analysis. While the process under scrutiny is of major relevance for Higgs boson searches at the LHC, we use it to demonstrate the ability of our system built around Helac-Phegas to tackle complete calculations at the frontier of current studies for the LHC. On the technical side, we show how the virtual corrections are efficiently computed with Helac-1Loop, based on the OPP method and the reduction code CutTools, using reweighting and Monte Carlo over color configurations and polarizations. As far as the real corrections are concerned, we use the recently published Helac-Dipoles package. In connection with improvements of the latter, we give the last missing integrated dipole formulae necessary for a complete implementation of phase space restriction dependence in the massive dipole subtraction formalism.