The measurement of the Higgs self-coupling at the LHC: theoretical status

TL;DR

This paper reviews the theoretical status of measuring the Higgs self-coupling at the LHC, analyzing production processes, cross sections, uncertainties, and detection prospects to guide future experimental efforts.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive evaluation of Higgs pair production processes, including higher order corrections and sensitivity estimates for measuring the Higgs self-coupling at current and future colliders.

Findings

Cross sections for Higgs pair production vary with energy and process.

Higher order QCD corrections significantly affect predicted rates.

Detection prospects depend on channel sensitivity and collider energy.

Abstract

Now that the Higgs boson has been observed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, the next important step would be to measure accurately its properties to establish the details of the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism. Among the measurements which need to be performed, the determination of the Higgs self-coupling in processes where the Higgs boson is produced in pairs is of utmost importance. In this paper, we discuss the various processes which allow for the measurement of the trilinear Higgs coupling: double Higgs production in the gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, double Higgs-strahlung and associated production with a top quark pair. We first evaluate the production cross sections for these processes at the LHC with center-of-mass energies ranging from the present $\sqrt s=8$ TeV to $\sqrt s=100$ TeV, and discuss their sensitivity to the trilinear Higgs coupling. We include the various higher order QCD radiative corrections, at next-to-leading order for gluon and vector boson fusion and at next-to-next-to-leading order for associated double Higgs production with a gauge boson. The theoretical uncertainties on these cross sections are estimated. Finally, we discuss the various channels which could allow for the detection of the double Higgs production signal at the LHC and the accuracy on the self-coupling that could be ultimately achieved.