Higgs Boson Production in Association with Bottom Quarks

TL;DR

This paper analyzes Higgs boson production with bottom quarks in the Standard Model and supersymmetric models, comparing different production channels and calculating cross sections at next-to-leading order in QCD for collider experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of Higgs production channels involving bottom quarks at NLO and NNLO, highlighting their relevance in supersymmetric models with enhanced b quark couplings.

Findings

Enhanced Higgs-b quark couplings lead to increased production rates.

Comparison of production channels at Tevatron and LHC shows significant differences.

Cross section calculations inform experimental search strategies.

Abstract

In the Standard Model, the coupling of the Higgs boson to b quarks is weak, leading to small cross sections for producing a Higgs boson in association with b quarks. However, Higgs bosons with enhanced couplings to b quarks, such as occur in supersymmetric models for large values of tan beta, will be copiously produced at both the Tevatron and the LHC in association with b quarks, which will be an important discovery channel. We investigate the connections between the production channels, bg -> bh and gg ->b bbar h, at next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative QCD and present results for the cases with two high p_T b jets and with one high p_T b jet at both the Tevatron the the LHC. Finally, the total cross sections without cuts are compared between gg -> b bbar h at NLO and b bbar ->h at NNLO.