Inclusive Higgs Production at Large Transverse Momentum

TL;DR

This paper derives a factorization formula for inclusive Higgs production at high transverse momentum, allowing for resummation of large logarithms and providing accurate predictions for future collider energies.

Contribution

It introduces a leading-power factorization formula for Higgs production at large P_T, including all relevant terms and enabling resummation of large logarithms.

Findings

Error in the formula decreases to less than 5% for P_T > 600 GeV.

The formula accurately predicts Higgs production cross sections at future colliders.

Resummation improves the precision of high-P_T Higgs predictions.

Abstract

We present a factorization formula for the inclusive production of the Higgs boson at large transverse momentum $P_T$ that includes all terms with the leading power of $1/P_T^2$. The cross section is factorized into convolutions of parton distributions, infrared-safe hard-scattering cross sections for producing a parton, and fragmentation functions that give the distribution of the longitudinal momentum fraction of the Higgs relative to the fragmenting parton. The infrared-safe cross sections and the fragmentation functions are perturbatively calculable. The factorization formula enables the resummation of large logarithms of $P_T/M_H$ due to final-state radiation by integrating evolution equations for the fragmentation functions. By comparing the cross section for the process $q\bar{q}\to H t\bar t$ from the leading-power factorization formula at leading order in the coupling constants with the complete leading-order cross section, we infer that the error in the factorization formula decreases to less than 5% for $P_T>600$ GeV at a future $100$ TeV collider.