The Higgs impact factor at next-to-leading order

TL;DR

This paper calculates the next-to-leading order impact factor for forward Higgs boson production, enabling more precise predictions of high-energy processes with large rapidity gaps at the LHC.

Contribution

It provides the first NLO impact factor for forward Higgs production, enhancing theoretical tools for small-x physics and high-energy collider phenomenology.

Findings

Computed the NLO impact factor for forward Higgs production.

Facilitates improved predictions for LHC processes with large rapidity separations.

Enables incorporation of small-x corrections via unintegrated gluon distributions.

Abstract

We compute at next-to-leading order level the impact factor for the production of a forward Higgs boson from a colliding proton. Combined with other forward impact factors, it can be used to describe, at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, processes in which two objects featuring large separation in rapidity are detected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). As well, combined with a proper definition of the \textit{unintegrated gluon distribution} (UGD), it can be used to compute small-$x$ corrections to the forward Higgs production.