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Kirill Melnikov

Publications and source records attributed to Kirill Melnikov.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2019

Analytic results for color-singlet production at NNLO QCD with the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme

We present analytic formulas that describe fully-differential production of color-singlet final states in $q\bar q$ and $gg$ annihilation, including all the relevant partonic channels, through NNLO QCD. We work within the nested soft-collinear scheme which allows for fully local subtraction of infrared divergences. We demonstrate analytic cancellation of soft and collinear poles and present formulas for finite parts of all integrated subtraction terms. These results provide an important building block for calculating NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at hadron colliders within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme.

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arXiv2018

Bottom-quark effects in Higgs production at intermediate transverse momentum

We provide a precise description of the Higgs boson transverse momentum distribution including top and bottom quark contributions, that is valid for transverse momenta in the range mb < pt < mt, where mb and mt are the bottom and top quark masses. This description is based on a combination of fixed next-to-leading order (NLO) results with next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) transverse momentum resummation. We show that ambiguities in the resummation procedure for the b-quark loops are of the same order as the related fixed-order uncertainties. We conclude that the current uncertainty in the top-bottom interference contribution to the Higgs transverse momentum spectrum is O(20%).

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arXiv2018

The double-soft integral for an arbitrary angle between hard radiators

We consider the double-soft limit of a generic QCD process involving massless partons and integrate analytically the double-soft eikonal functions over the phase-space of soft partons (gluons or quarks) allowing for an arbitrary relative angle between the three-momenta of two hard massless radiators. This result provides one of the missing ingredients for a fully analytic formulation of the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme recently proposed by some of us.

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arXiv2018

Higgs bosons with large transverse momentum at the LHC

We compute the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of Higgs bosons with large transverse momentum $p_\perp \gg 2 m_t$ at the LHC. To accomplish this, we combine the two-loop amplitudes for processes $gg \to Hg$, $qg \to Hq$ and $q \bar q \to H g$, recently computed in the approximation of nearly massless top quarks, with the numerical calculation of the squared one-loop amplitudes for $gg \to Hgg$, $q g \to H q g$ and $q \bar q \to Hgg$ processes. The latter computation is performed with OpenLoops. We find that the QCD corrections to the Higgs transverse momentum distribution at very high $p_\perp$ are large but quite similar to the QCD corrections obtained for point-like $Hgg$ coupling. Our result removes one of the largest sources of theoretical uncertainty in the description of high-$p_\perp$ Higgs boson production and opens a way to use the high-$p_\perp$ region to search for physics beyond the Standard Model.

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arXiv2018

Higher order corrections to mixed QCD-EW contributions to Higgs production in gluon fusion

We present an estimate of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to mixed QCD-electroweak contribution to Higgs boson production cross section in gluon fusion, combining the recently computed three-loop virtual corrections and the approximate treatment of real emission in the soft approximation. We find that the NLO QCD corrections to mixed QCD-electroweak contributions are nearly identical to NLO QCD corrections to QCD Higgs production. Our result confirms an earlier estimate of these ${\cal O}\left( α\, α_s^2 \right)$ effects in arXiv:0811.3458 [hep-ph] and provides further support for the factorization approximation of QCD and electroweak corrections.

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arXiv2017

NNLO QCD corrections to associated $WH$ production and $H \to b \bar b$ decay

We present a computation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson in association with a W boson at the LHC and the subsequent decay of the Higgs boson into a b-bbar pair, treating the b-quarks as massless. We consider various kinematic distributions and find significant corrections to observables that resolve the Higgs decay products. We also find that a cut on the transverse momentum of the W boson, important for experimental analyses, may have a significant impact on kinematic distributions and radiative corrections. We show that some of these effects can be adequately described by simulating QCD radiation in Higgs boson decays to b-quarks using parton showers. We also describe contributions to Higgs decay to a b-bbar pair that first appear at NNLO and that were not considered in previous fully-differential computations. The calculation of NNLO QCD corrections to production and decay sub-processes is carried out within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme presented by some of us earlier this year. We demonstrate that this subtraction scheme performs very well, allowing a computation of the coefficient of the second order QCD corrections at the level of a few per mill.

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arXiv2017

Two-loop amplitudes for processes $g g \to H g, q g \to H q$ and $q \bar{q} \to H g$ at large Higgs transverse momentum

We compute the two-loop QCD corrections to amplitudes for processes $g g \to H g, q g \to H q$ and $q \bar{q} \to H g$ in the limit when the Higgs transverse momentum is larger than the top quark mass, $p_\perp \gg m_t$. These amplitudes are important ingredients for understanding higher-order QCD effects on Higgs transverse momentum distribution at large $p_\perp$.

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arXiv2017

Top-bottom interference effects in Higgs plus jet production at the LHC

We compute next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the top-bottom interference contribution to H+j production at the LHC. To achieve this, we combine the recent computation of the two-loop amplitudes for gg -> Hg and qg -> Hq, performed in the approximation of a small b-quark mass, and the numerical calculation of the squared one-loop amplitudes for gg -> Hgg and qg -> Hqg performed within OpenLoops. We find that QCD corrections to the interference are large and similar to the QCD corrections to the top-mediated Higgs production cross section. We also observe a significant reduction in the mass-renormalization scheme uncertainty, once the NLO QCD prediction for the interference is employed.

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arXiv2017

Nested soft-collinear subtractions in NNLO QCD computations

We discuss a modification of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) subtraction scheme based on the residue-improved sector decomposition that reduces the number of double-real emission sectors from five to four. In particular, a sector where energies and angles of unresolved particles vanish in a correlated fashion is redundant and can be discarded. This simple observation allows us to formulate a transparent iterative subtraction procedure for double-real emission contributions, to demonstrate the cancellation of soft and collinear singularities in an explicit and (almost) process-independent way and to write the result of a NNLO calculation in terms of quantities that can be computed in four space-time dimensions. We illustrate this procedure explicitly in the simple case of $O(α_s^2)$ gluonic corrections to the Drell-Yan process of $q \bar q$ annihilation into a lepton pair. We show that this framework leads to fast and numerically stable computation of QCD corrections.

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arXiv2017

Two-loop electroweak corrections to Higgs-gluon couplings to higher orders in the dimensional regularization parameter

We compute the two-loop electroweak correction to the production of the Higgs boson in gluon fusion to higher orders in the dimensional-regularization parameter $ε= (d-4)/2$. We employ the method of differential equations to compute the relevant integrals and express them in terms of Goncharov polylogarithms. Our result provides one of the necessary inputs for the computation of mixed three-loop QCD-electroweak corrections to $gg \to H$.

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arXiv2016

Two-loop $gg \to Hg$ amplitude mediated by a nearly massless quark

We analytically compute the two-loop scattering amplitude $gg \to Hg$ assuming that the mass of the quark, that mediates the ggH interaction, is vanishingly small. Our computation provides an important ingredient required to improve the theoretical description of the top-bottom interference effect in Higgs boson production in gluon fusion, and to elucidate its impact on the Higgs boson transverse momentum distribution.

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arXiv2016

QCD corrections to vector boson pair production in gluon fusion including interference effects with off-shell Higgs at the LHC

We compute next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the production of two massive electroweak bosons in gluon fusion. We consider both the prompt production process $gg \to VV$ and the production mediated by an exchange of an s-channel Higgs boson, $gg \to H^* \to V V$. We include final states with both on- and off-shell vector bosons with leptonic decays. The gluonic production of vector bosons is a loop-induced process, including both massless and massive quarks in the loop. For $gg \to ZZ$ production, we obtain the NLO QCD corrections to the massive loops through an expansion around the heavy top limit. This approximation is valid below the top production threshold, giving a broad range of invariant masses between the Higgs production and the top production thresholds in which our results are valid. We explore the NLO QCD effects in $gg \to ZZ$ focusing, in particular, on the interference between prompt and Higgs-mediated processes. We find that the QCD corrections to the interference are large and similar in size to the corrections to both the signal and the background processes. At the same time, we observe that corrections to the interference change rapidly with the four-lepton invariant mass in the region around the ZZ production threshold. We also study the interference effects in $gg \to WW$ production where, due to technical limitations, we only consider contributions of massless loops. We find that the QCD corrections to the interference in this case are somewhat larger than those for either the signal or the background.

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arXiv2016

On the light quark mass effects in Higgs boson production in gluon fusion

Production of Higgs bosons at the LHC is affected by the contribution of light quarks, that mediate the gg \to Hg transition. Although their impact is suppressed by small Yukawa couplings, it is enhanced by large logarithms of the ratio of the Higgs boson mass or its transverse momentum to light quark masses. We study the origin of this enhancement, focusing on the abelian corrections to gg \to Hg amplitudes of the form (C_F alphas L^{2})^n, where $L \in { ln(s/mb^2), ln(p_\perp^2/mb^2) }. We show how these non-Sudakov double logarithmic terms can be resummed to all orders in the strong coupling constant. Interestingly, we find that the transverse momentum dependence of these corrections is very weak due to a peculiar cancellation between different logarithmic terms. Although the abelian part of QCD corrections is not expected to be dominant, it can be used to estimate missing higher-order corrections to light quark contributions to Higgs boson production at the LHC.

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arXiv2016

Higgs boson decay to two photons and the dispersion relations

We discuss the computation of the Higgs boson decay amplitude to two photons through the W-loop using dispersion relations. The imaginary part of the form factor F_W(s) that parametrizes this decay is unambiguous in four dimensions. When it is used to calculate the unsubtracted dispersion integral, the finite result for the form factor F_W(s) is obtained. However, the F_W(s) obtained in this way differs by a constant term from the result of a diagrammatic computation, based on dimensional regularization. It is easy to accommodate the missing constant by writing a once-subtracted dispersion relation for F_W(s) but it is unclear why the subtraction needs to be done. The goal of this paper is to investigate this question in detail. We show that the correct constant can be recovered within a dispersive approach in a number of ways that, however, either require an introduction of an ultraviolet regulator or unphysical degrees of freedom; unregulated and unsubtracted computations in the unitary gauge are insufficient, in spite of the fact that such computations give a finite result.

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arXiv2015

QCD corrections to $W^+W^-$ production through gluon fusion

We compute the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the $gg \to W^+ W^- \to l^+_1 ν_1 l^-_2 \bar ν_2$ process, mediated by a massless quark loop, at the LHC. This process first contributes to the hadroproduction of $W^+W^-$ at $\mathcal{O}(α_s^2)$, but, nevertheless, has a sizable impact on the total production rate. We find that the NLO QCD corrections to the $gg \to W^+W^-$ process amount to ${\cal O}(50)$%, and increase the NNLO QCD cross sections of $pp \to W^+W^-$ by approximately two percent, at both the 8 TeV and 13 TeV LHC. We also compute the NLO corrections to gluonic $W^+W^-$ production within a fiducial volume used by the ATLAS collaboration in their 8 TeV measurement of the $W^+W^-$ production rate and find that the QCD corrections are significantly smaller than in the inclusive case. While the current experimental uncertainties are still too large to make these differences relevant, the observed strong dependence of perturbative corrections on kinematic cuts underscores that extrapolation from a fiducial measurement to the total cross section is an extremely delicate matter, and calls for the direct comparison of fiducial volume measurements with corresponding theoretical computations.

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