Sandro Uccirati

NLO Electroweak Corrections to Higgs Boson Production at Hadron Colliders

Results for the complete NLO electroweak corrections to Standard Model Higgs production via gluon fusion are included in the total cross section for hadronic collisions. Artificially large threshold effects are avoided working in the complex-mass scheme. The numerical impact at LHC (Tevatron) energies is explored for Higgs mass values up to 500 GeV (200 GeV). Assuming a complete factorization of the electroweak corrections, one finds a +5% shift with respect to the NNLO QCD cross section for a Higgs mass of 120 GeV both at the LHC and the Tevatron. Adopting two different factorization schemes for the electroweak effects, an estimate of the corresponding total theoretical uncertainty is computed.

All-purpose numerical evaluation of one-loop multi-leg Feynman diagrams

Abstract A detailed investigation is presented of a set of algorithms which form the basis for a fast and reliable numerical integration of one-loop multi-leg (up to six) Feynman diagrams, with special attention to the behavior around (possibly) singular points in phase space. No particular restriction is imposed on kinematics, and complex masses (poles) are allowed.

NNLO Computational Techniques: the Cases H -> gamma gamma and H -> g g

A large set of techniques needed to compute decay rates at the two-loop level are derived and systematized. The main emphasis of the paper is on the two Standard Model decays H → γγ and H → gg. The techniques, however, have a much wider range of application: they give practical examples of general rules for two-loop renormalization; they introduce simple recipes for handling internal unstable particles in two-loop processes; they illustrate simple procedures for the extraction of collinear logarithms from the amplitude. The latter is particularly relevant to show cancellations, e.g. cancellation of collinear divergencies. Furthermore, the paper deals with the proper treatment of non-enhanced two-loop QCD and electroweak contributions to different physical (pseudo-)observables, showing how they can be transformed in a way that allows for a stable numerical integration. Numerical results for the two-loop percentage corrections to H → γγ, gg are presented and discussed. When applied to the process pp → gg +X → H +X , the results show that the electroweak scaling factor for the cross section is between −4% and +6% in the range 100 GeV < M H < 500 GeV, without incongruent large effects around the physical electroweak thresholds, thereby showing that only a complete implementation of the computational scheme keeps two-loop corrections under control.

NNLO computational techniques: The cases H→γγ and H→gg

A large set of techniques needed to compute decay rates at the two-loop level are derived and systematized. The main emphasis of the paper is on the two Standard Model decays H → γγ and H → gg. The techniques, however, have a much wider range of application: they give practical examples of general rules for two-loop renormalization; they introduce simple recipes for handling internal unstable particles in two-loop processes; they illustrate simple procedures for the extraction of collinear logarithms from the amplitude. The latter is particularly relevant to show cancellations, e.g. cancellation of collinear divergencies. Furthermore, the paper deals with the proper treatment of non-enhanced two-loop QCD and electroweak contributions to different physical (pseudo-)observables, showing how they can be transformed in a way that allows for a stable numerical integration. Numerical results for the two-loop percentage corrections to H → γγ, gg are presented and discussed. When applied to the process pp → gg +X → H +X , the results show that the electroweak scaling factor for the cross section is between −4% and +6% in the range 100 GeV < M H < 500 GeV, without incongruent large effects around the physical electroweak thresholds, thereby showing that only a complete implementation of the computational scheme keeps two-loop corrections under control.

Recursive generation of one-loop amplitudes in the Standard Model

A bstractWe introduce the computer code Recola for the recursive generation of tree-level and one-loop amplitudes in the Standard Model. Tree-level amplitudes are constructed using off-shell currents instead of Feynman diagrams as basic building blocks. One-loop amplitudes are represented as linear combinations of tensor integrals whose coefficients are calculated similarly to the tree-level amplitudes by recursive construction of loop off-shell currents. We introduce a novel algorithm for the treatment of colour, assigning a colour structure to each off-shell current which enables us to recursively construct the colour structure of the amplitude efficiently. Recola is interfaced with a tensor-integral library and provides complete one-loop Standard Model amplitudes including rational terms and counterterms. As a first application we consider Z + 2 jets production at the LHC and calculate with Recola the next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections to the dominant partonic channels.

Higgs Pseudo-Observables, Second Riemann Sheet and All That

The relation between physical observables measured at LHC and Tevatron and standard model Higgs pseudo-observables (production cross section and partial decay widths) is revised by extensively using the notion of the Higgs complex pole on the second Riemann sheet of the S-matrix. The extension of their definition to higher orders is considered, confronting the problems that arise when QED (QCD) corrections are included in computing realistic observables. Numerical results are presented for pseudo-observables related to the standard model Higgs boson decay and production. The relevance of the result for exclusion plots of the standard model Higgs boson for high masses (up to 600 GeV) is discussed. Furthermore, a recipe for the analytical continuation of Feynman loop integrals from real to complex internal masses and complex Mandelstam invariants is thoroughly discussed.

NLO Higgs Effective Field Theory and κ-framework ∗

A bstractA consistent framework for studying Standard Model deviations is developed. It assumes that New Physics becomes relevant at some scale beyond the present experimental reach and uses the Effective Field Theory approach by adding higher-dimensional operators to the Standard Model Lagrangian and by computing relevant processes at the next-to-leading order, extending the original κ -framework. The generalized κ -framework provides a useful technical tool to decompose amplitudes at NLO accuracy into a sum of well defined gauge-invariant sub components.

Electroweak corrections to W-boson pair production at the LHC

A bstractVector-boson pair production ranks among the most important Standard-Model benchmark processes at the LHC, not only in view of on-going Higgs analyses. These processes may also help to gain a deeper understanding of the electroweak interaction in general, and to test the validity of the Standard Model at highest energies. In this work, the first calculation of the full one-loop electroweak corrections to on-shell W-boson pair production at hadron colliders is presented. We discuss the impact of the corrections on the total cross section as well as on relevant differential distributions. We observe that corrections due to photon-induced channels can be amazingly large at energies accessible at the LHC, while radiation of additional massive vector bosons does not influence the results significantly.

Two-loop vertices in quantum field theory: infrared convergent scalar configurations

Abstract A comprehensive study is performed of general massive, scalar, two-loop Feynman diagrams with three external legs. Algorithms for their numerical evaluation are introduced and discussed, numerical results are shown for all different topologies and comparisons with analytical results, whenever available, are performed. An internal cross-check, based on alternative procedures, is also applied. The analysis of infrared divergent configurations, as well as the treatment of tensor integrals, will be discussed in two forthcoming papers.

RECOLA2: REcursive Computation of One-Loop Amplitudes 2

We present the Fortran95 program Recola for the perturbative computation of next-to-leading-order transition amplitudes in the Standard Model of particle physics. The code provides numerical results in the ’t Hooft– Feynman gauge. It uses the complex-mass scheme and allows for a consistent isolation of resonant contributions. Dimensional regularization is employed for ultraviolet and infrared singularities, with the alternative possibility of treating collinear and soft singularities in mass regularization. Recola supports various renormalization schemes for the electromagnetic and a dynamical Nf-flavour scheme for the strong coupling constant. The calculation of next-to-leading-order squared amplitudes, summed over spin and colour, is supported as well as the computation of colourand spin-correlated leadingorder squared amplitudes needed in the dipole subtraction formalism.