Energy-energy correlation in hadronic Higgs decays: analytic results and phenomenology at NLO

TL;DR

This paper provides the full analytic NLO calculation of the energy-energy correlation function in hadronic Higgs decays, including corrections and phenomenological implications for future Higgs measurements.

Contribution

It presents the first complete analytic NLO result for the EEC in the Higgs decay to quarks, with detailed phenomenological analysis and correction considerations.

Findings

Analytic NLO expression for Higgs EEC in quark decay channel.

Quantitative estimates of measurement errors at future colliders.

Assessment of perturbative and non-perturbative effects on Higgs EEC.

Abstract

In this work we complete the investigation of the recently introduced energy-energy correlation (EEC) function in hadronic Higgs decays at next-to-leading order (NLO) in fixed-order perturbation theory in the limit of vanishing light quark masses. The full analytic NLO result for the previously unknown EEC in the $H \to q \bar{q} + X$ channel is given in terms of classical polylogarithms and cross-checked against a numerical calculation. In addition to that, we discuss further corrections to predictions of the Higgs EEC event shape variable, including quark mass corrections, effects of parton shower and hadronization. We also estimate the statistical error on the measurements of the Higgs EEC at future Higgs factories and compare with the current perturbative uncertainty.