Associated Top Quark-Higgs Boson Production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper calculates the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to top quark-Higgs boson production at the LHC, significantly improving the precision of cross section predictions crucial for new physics searches.

Contribution

It provides the first NLO QCD calculation of pp -> t-tbar-h production at 14 TeV, reducing theoretical uncertainties and enhancing prediction accuracy.

Findings

NLO corrections reduce scale dependence

Total cross section increases for scales > m_t

Implications for new physics models involving top quarks

Abstract

We compute the O(alpha_s^3) inclusive cross section for the process pp -> t-tbar-h in the Standard Model, at sqrt(s)=14 TeV. The next-to-leading order corrections drastically reduce the renormalization and factorization scale dependence of the Born cross section and increase the total cross section for renormalization and factorization scales larger than m_t. These corrections have important implications for models of new physics involving the top quark.