Higgs production via vector-boson fusion at NNLO in QCD

TL;DR

This paper calculates precise predictions for Higgs boson production via vector-boson fusion at NNLO in QCD, reducing theoretical uncertainties and improving accuracy for LHC experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first NNLO QCD total cross section calculations for Higgs production via weak boson fusion using the structure function approach.

Findings

Total cross sections estimated with 2% uncertainty.

QCD corrections factorized with high accuracy.

Applicable for a wide range of Higgs masses.

Abstract

We present the total cross sections at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in the strong coupling for Higgs production via weak boson fusion. Our results are obtained via the structure function approach, which builds upon the approximate, though very accurate, factorization of the QCD corrections between the two quark lines. The theoretical uncertainty on the total cross sections at the LHC from higher order corrections and the parton distribution uncertainties are estimated at the 2% level each for a wide range of Higgs boson masses.