Anomalous couplings in Higgs-boson pair production at approximate NNLO QCD

TL;DR

This paper advances the theoretical understanding of Higgs-boson pair production by combining NLO and approximate NNLO QCD predictions, incorporating anomalous couplings within an effective field theory framework, and analyzing their impact on key observables.

Contribution

It introduces a method to include full top-quark mass dependence with approximate NNLO predictions for Higgs pair production, considering multiple anomalous couplings in a non-linear EFT.

Findings

Higgs-pair invariant-mass distributions vary with anomalous couplings.

Numerical coefficients for NNLO cross sections are provided at 14 TeV.

Different $m_{hh}$ shape types are characterized at seven benchmark points.

Abstract

We combine NLO predictions with full top-quark mass dependence with approximate NNLO predictions for Higgs-boson pair production in gluon fusion, including the possibility to vary coupling parameters within a non-linear Effective Field Theory framework containing five anomalous couplings for this process. We study the impact of the anomalous couplings on various observables, and present Higgs-pair invariant-mass distributions at seven benchmark points characterising different $m_{hh}$ shape types. We also provide numerical coefficients for the approximate NNLO cross section as a function of the anomalous couplings at $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV.