Higgs production in association with off-shell top-antitop pairs at NLO EW and QCD at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper computes precise NLO electroweak corrections for Higgs production with off-shell top-antitop pairs at the LHC, including all interference and off-shell effects, crucial for accurate experimental measurements.

Contribution

It provides the first exact calculation of full NLO electroweak corrections for this process, including complex virtual corrections and off-shell effects, enhancing theoretical precision.

Findings

Electroweak corrections are below 1% for total cross section.

Corrections can exceed 10% in specific phase-space regions.

Off-shell contributions are significant, especially for LHC Run II.

Abstract

We present NLO electroweak corrections to Higgs production in association with off-shell top-antitop quark pairs. The full process $\text{p}\text{p}\to\text{e}^+\nu_{\text{e}} \mu^-\bar{\nu}_\mu\text{b}\bar{\text{b}} \text{H}$ is considered, and hence all interference, off-shell, and non-resonant contributions are taken into account. The electroweak corrections turn out to be below one per cent for the integrated cross section but can exceed $10\%$ in certain phase-space regions. In addition to its phenomenological relevance, the computation constitutes a major technical achievement as the full NLO virtual corrections involving up to 9-point functions have been computed exactly. The results of the full computation are supported by two calculations in the double-pole approximation. These also allow to infer the effect of off-shell contributions and emphasise their importance especially for the run II of the LHC. Finally, we present combined predictions featuring both NLO electroweak and QCD corrections in a common set-up that will help the experimental collaborations in their quest of precisely measuring the aforementioned process.