No Arabic abstract
We present several key steps towards the computation of differential Higgs boson cross sections at N$^3$LO in perturbative QCD. Specifically, we work in the framework of Higgs-differential cross sections that allows to compute precise predictions for realistic LHC observables. We demonstrate how to perform an expansion of the analytic N$^3$LO coefficient functions around the production threshold of the Higgs boson. Our framework allows us to compute to arbitrarily high order in the threshold expansion and we explicitly obtain the first two expansion coefficients in analytic form. Furthermore, we assess the phenomenological viability of threshold expansions for differential distributions. In addition, we report on an interesting obstacle for the computation of N$^3$LO corrections with LHAPDF parton distribution functions and our solution. We provide files containing the analytic expressions for the partonic cross sections together with the arXiv submission.
We present the Higgs boson production cross section at Hadron colliders in the gluon fusion production mode through N3LO in perturbative QCD. Specifically, we work in an effective theory where the top quark is assumed to be infinitely heavy and all other quarks are considered to be massless. Our result is the first exact formula for a partonic hadron collider cross section at N3LO in perturbative QCD. Furthermore, this result represents the first analytic computation of a hadron collider cross section involving elliptic integrals. We derive numerical predictions for the Higgs boson cross section at the LHC. Previously this result was approximated by an expansion of the cross section around the production threshold of the Higgs boson and we compare our findings. Finally, we study the impact of our new result on the state of the art prediction for the Higgs boson cross section at the LHC.
We present the production cross section for a lepton-neutrino pair at the Large Hadron Collider computed at next-to-next-to-next-to leading order (N3LO) in QCD perturbation theory. We compute the partonic coefficient functions of a virtual $W^{pm}$ boson at this order. We then use these analytic functions to study the progression of the perturbative series in different observables. In particular, we investigate the impact of the newly obtained corrections on the inclusive production cross section of $W^{pm}$ bosons, as well as on the ratios of the production cross sections for $W^+$, $W^-$ and/or a virtual photon. Finally, we present N3LO predictions for the charge asymmetry at the LHC.
We study the resummation of large logarithmic QCD corrections for the process pp ->H+ X when the Higgs boson H is produced at high transverse momentum. The corrections arise near the threshold for partonic reaction and originate from soft gluon emission. We perform the all-order resummation at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy and match the resummed result with the next-to-leading order perturbative predictions. The effect of resummation on the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at the LHC is discussed.
We review recent theoretical progress in evaluating higher order QCD corrections to Higgs boson differential distributions at hadron-hadron colliders.
We analyze the properties of the ACOT scheme for heavy quark production and make use of the MSbar massless results at NNLO and N3LO for the structure functions F2 and FL in neutral current deep-inelastic scattering to estimate the higher order corrections. For this purpose we decouple the heavy quark mass entering the phase space from the one entering the dynamics of the short distance cross section. We show numerically that the phase space mass is generally more important. Therefore, the dominant heavy quark mass effects at higher orders can be taken into account using the massless Wilson coefficients together with an appropriate slow-rescaling prescription implementing the phase space constraints. Combining the exact ACOT scheme at NLO with these expressions should provide a good approximation to the missing full calculation in the ACOT scheme at NNLO and N3LO.