The Higgs transverse momentum spectrum with finite quark masses beyond leading order

TL;DR

This paper applies high-energy resummation techniques to analyze the Higgs boson transverse momentum spectrum, incorporating finite quark mass effects beyond leading order, and provides improved approximations for high pt regions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of high-energy resummation to include finite quark mass effects in Higgs pT distribution beyond leading order.

Findings

High-energy approximation remains accurate at high pT.

Mass-dependent corrections are significant at low pT.

Combining full LO with high-energy K-factor improves NLO predictions.

Abstract

We apply the leading-log high-energy resummation technique recently derived by some of us to the transverse momentum (pt) distribution for production of a Higgs boson in gluon fusion. We use our results to obtain information on mass-dependent corrections to this observable, which is only known at leading order when exact mass dependence is included. In the low pt region we discuss the all-order exponentiation of collinear bottom mass logarithms. In the high pt region we show that the infinite top mass approximation loses accuracy as a power of pt, while the accuracy of the high-energy approximation is approximately constant as pt grows. We argue that a good approximation to the NLO result for pt >~200 GeV can be obtained by combining the full LO result with a K-factor computed using the high-energy approximation.