Two-loop virtual corrections to Higgs pair production

TL;DR

This paper calculates two-loop virtual corrections to Higgs pair production via gluon fusion in the Standard Model, providing more precise cross section estimates at the LHC with reduced theoretical uncertainties.

Contribution

It presents the first two-loop virtual correction calculation for Higgs pair production in the heavy top quark limit, improving the accuracy of theoretical predictions.

Findings

K-factor of about 2.4 at NNLO soft-virtual approximation

23% increase in cross section over NLO calculations

Reduced scale dependence in the theoretical predictions

Abstract

We present the two-loop virtual corrections to Standard Model Higgs boson pair production via gluon fusion $gg\to HH$ in the heavy top quark limit. Based on this result, we evaluate the corresponding cross section at the LHC at 14 TeV in the next-to-next-to-leading order soft-virtual approximation. We find an inclusive K-factor of about 2.4, resulting in an increase close to 23% with respect to the previous available calculation at next-to-leading order. As expected, we observe a considerable reduction in the renormalization and factorization scale dependence.