Associated Higgs + jet(s) production at the LHC and CCFM gluon dynamics in a proton

TL;DR

This paper investigates Higgs boson and jet production at the LHC using the $k_T$-factorization approach with TMD gluon densities, comparing results with experimental data and highlighting sensitivity to gluon dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the first analysis of Higgs + jet production at the LHC using the $k_T$-factorization approach with TMD gluon densities and compares with experimental data.

Findings

Results agree with CMS and ATLAS data at 8 and 13 TeV.

Identifies observables sensitive to TMD gluon densities.

Demonstrates the importance of gluon transverse momentum in Higgs production.

Abstract

We consider the associated production of Higgs boson and hadronic jet(s) in $pp$ collisions at the LHC for the first time using the $k_T$-factorization approach. Our analysis is based on the off-shell gluon-gluon fusion subprocess, where non-zero transverse momenta of initial gluons are taken into account and covers $H \to \gamma \gamma$, $H \to ZZ^* \to 4l$ (with $l = e,\mu$) and $H \to W^+ W^- \to e^\pm \mu^\mp \nu \bar \nu$ decay channels. The transverse momentum dependent (TMD) gluon densities in a proton are taken from Catani-Ciafaloni-Fiorani-Marchesini evolution equation. To simulate the kinematics of the produced jets the TMD parton shower implemented into the Monte-Carlo event generator \textsc{cascade} is applied. The comparison of our results with the latest experimental data taken by the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations at $\sqrt s = 8$ and $13$ TeV and conventional higher-order perturbative QCD calculations is presented. We highlight observables, which are sensitive to the TMD gluon densities in a proton.