Estimations for the Higgs boson production with QCD and EW corrections in exclusive events at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper estimates the Higgs boson production cross section in exclusive events at the LHC, incorporating QCD and electroweak corrections, and evaluates its potential for detection.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed NLO QCD and EW correction analysis for Higgs production via double Pomeron exchange in exclusive LHC events.

Findings

Cross section of 0.3-0.8 fb at 7 TeV and 1.2-3.7 fb at 14 TeV

Production rates comparable to two-photon and BFKL Pomeron mechanisms

Exclusive production is promising for Higgs detection at the LHC

Abstract

The Higgs boson production is investigated in proton-proton collisions at next-to-leading-order accuracy in central exclusive diffractive processes at the LHC. The production process by the double Pomeron exchange is analyzed in the diffractive factorization through the Ingelman-Schlein approach, taking into account the parton content of the Pomeron by the diffractive partonic distribution function provided by the H1 Collaboration. Hence, we estimate the production cross section of the Higgs boson as well as its rapidity distribution for distinct energies of the LHC. Also, we include the gap survival probability in our calculation, which is studied in recent works and expected to lie in the range between 1% and 5% for the energy regime of 14 TeV. As a result, we found a production cross section of about 0.3--0.8 (1.2--3.7) fb at 7 (14) TeV, being of the same order as predicted by the two-photon and the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov Pomeron mechanisms. Therefore, assuming the selection rules of spin-parity properties, the exclusive production is a promising channel for the Higgs boson detection in the LHC.