Higgs decay into massive b-quarks at NNLO QCD in the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed NNLO QCD calculation of Higgs decay into massive b-quarks using an extended nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme, including loop effects from top quarks, and validates results against existing literature.

Contribution

It introduces an extension of the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme to handle massive partons in Higgs decay calculations at NNLO.

Findings

Validated decay width predictions against existing results.

Achieved a fully differential NNLO description of Higgs to b-quarks.

Included top-quark loop contributions in the decay process.

Abstract

We present a fully differential description of a decay of a scalar Higgs boson into massive b-quarks valid at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). We work within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme extended to accommodate massive partons. We include the loop-induced contribution involving a Higgs coupling to a top quark. We test our calculation against results existing in the literature, comparing the predictions for the total decay width and jet rates.