Simulating $b$-associated production of $Z$ and Higgs bosons with SHERPA

TL;DR

This paper compares four- and five-flavour scheme predictions for $b$-associated production of $Z$ and Higgs bosons using SHERPA, validating models against LHC data and discussing their strengths and weaknesses.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of four- and five-flavour scheme approaches for $b$-associated boson production with SHERPA, including validation against experimental data.

Findings

Four-flavour scheme treats $b$ quarks as massive with MC@NLO.

Five-flavour scheme uses multijet merging at LO and NLO.

Comparison reveals strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Abstract

We compare four-- and five--flavour scheme predictions for $b$-associated production of $Z$ and Higgs bosons. The results are obtained with \Sherpa's MC@NLOimplementation for the four--flavour scheme, treating the $b$'s as massive, and with multijet merging at leading and next-to leading order for the five--flavour schemes. Comparison with data for $Z+b(\bar{b})$ production at the $7$ TeV LHC exhibit strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches and are used to validate predictions for $b$-associated Higgs-boson production at the 13 TeV Run II.