PDF uncertainties in WH production at Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper estimates the impact of parton distribution function uncertainties on W-Higgs production at Tevatron, finding a 3% uncertainty in rates and smaller effects on significance and cross section measurements.

Contribution

It applies a specific method to quantify PDF uncertainties in W-Higgs production, highlighting their effect on experimental measurements at Tevatron.

Findings

PDF uncertainties are about 3% for signal and background rates.

Correlated uncertainties reduce impact on significance and cross section accuracy.

Method demonstrates how to incorporate PDF uncertainties into collider analysis.

Abstract

We apply a method proposed by members of CTEQ Collaboration to estimate the uncertainty in associated $W$-Higgs boson production at Run II of the Tevatron due to our imprecise knowledge of parton distribution functions. We find that the PDF uncertainties for the signal and background rates are of the order 3%. The PDF uncertainties for the important statistical quantities (significance of the Higgs boson discovery, accuracy of the measurement of the (WH) cross section) are smaller (1.5%) due to the strong correlation of the signal and background.