Differential Higgs Boson Pair Production at Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

TL;DR

This paper presents the first fully differential NNLO QCD calculation for double Higgs production via gluon fusion, providing precise predictions for various observables at 14 TeV proton-proton collisions.

Contribution

It introduces the first fully differential NNLO QCD calculation for double Higgs production in gluon fusion, enhancing precision in theoretical predictions.

Findings

NNLO corrections increase predictions by 10-25% over NLO.

Residual scale uncertainty at NNLO is reduced to 5-15%.

Perturbative expansion converges at NNLO, with overlapping uncertainty bands.

Abstract

We report on the first fully differential calculation for double Higgs boson production through gluon fusion in hadron collisions up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD perturbation theory. The calculation is performed in the heavy-top limit of the Standard Model, and in the phenomenological results we focus on pp collisions at 14 TeV. We present differential distributions through NNLO for various observables including the transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions of the two Higgs bosons. NNLO corrections are at the level of 10%-25% with respect to the next-to-leading order (NLO) prediction with a residual scale uncertainty of 5%-15% and an overall mild phase-space dependence. Only at NNLO the perturbative expansion starts to converge yielding overlapping scale uncertainty bands between NNLO and NLO in most of the phase-space. The calculation includes NLO predictions for pp -> HH+jet+X. Corrections to the corresponding distributions exceed 50% with a residual scale dependence of 20%-30%.