Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the decay of Higgs to vector meson and Z boson

TL;DR

This paper calculates next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the Higgs decay into a vector meson and Z boson, providing refined predictions for branching ratios to test the Standard Model and explore new physics at colliders.

Contribution

It introduces the first calculation of NLO QCD corrections to Higgs decays into vector mesons and Z bosons, including interference effects, enhancing the precision of theoretical predictions.

Findings

QCD corrections reduce branching ratios by about 20%.

Interference effects between direct and indirect channels are nontrivial.

Results aid in testing the Higgs couplings and searching for new physics.

Abstract

The exclusive decay of the Higgs boson to a vector meson ($ J/\psi $ or $ \Upsilon(1S) $) and $ Z $ boson is studied in this work. The decay amplitudes are separated into two parts in a gauge invariant manner. The first part comes from the direct coupling of the Higgs boson to the charm (bottom) quark and the other from the $ HZZ^{*} $ or the loop-induced $ HZ\gamma^{*} $ vertexes in the standard model. While the branching ratios from the direct channel are much smaller than those of the indirect channel, their interference terms give nontrivial contributions. We further calculate the QCD radiative corrections to both channels, which reduce the total branching ratios by around 20% for both $ J/\psi $ and $ \Upsilon(1S) $ production. These results may help to check the SM predictions of the $ H c\bar{c}(H b\bar{b}) $ coupling and to seek for hints of new physics at the High Luminosity LHC or future hadron colliders.