NNLO QCD corrections to the Higgs-strahlung processes at hadron colliders

• Published in: Physics letters. B 2004-01, Vol.579 (1-2), p.149-156
• Main Authors: Brein, Oliver, Djouadi, Abdelhak, Harlander, Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; High Energy Physics - Phenomenology; Other particles (including hypothetical); Physics; Properties of specific particles; Standard-model higgs bosons; The physics of elementary particles and fields
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.112

We implement, at next-to-next-to-leading order, the QCD corrections to Standard Model Higgs boson production in association with vector bosons at hadron colliders, qq̄→HV with V=W,Z. They consist of the two-loop corrections to the Drell–Yan process for the production of off-shell vector bosons, qq̄→V∗, and in the case of Z final states, of the additional contribution from heavy-quark loop mediated processes, in particular gg→HZ. For the Higgs boson masses relevant at the Tevatron and the LHC, MH≲200–300 GeV, the two-loop corrections are small, increasing the production cross sections by less than 5% and 10%, respectively; the scale dependence is reduced to a level of less than a few per cent. This places these processes among the most theoretically clean Higgs boson production channels at hadron colliders.