Higgs production with a central jet veto at NNLL plus NNLO

Abstract

A major ingredient in Higgs searches at the Tevatron and LHC is the elimination of backgrounds with jets. In current H → WW → lνlν searches, jet algorithms are used to veto central jets to obtain a 0-jet sample, which is then analyzed to discover the Higgs signal. Imposing this tight jet veto induces large double logarithms which significantly modify the Higgs production cross section. These jet-veto logarithms are presently only accounted for at fixed order or with the leading-logarithmic summation from parton-shower Monte Carlos. Here we consider Higgs production with an inclusive event-shape variable for the jet veto, namely beam thrust Tcm, which has a close correspondence with a traditional pT jet veto. Tcm allows us to systematically sum the large jet-veto logarithms to higher orders and to provide better estimates for theoretical uncertainties. We present results for the 0-jet Higgs production cross section from gluon fusion at next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic order (NNLL), fully incorporating fixed-order results at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). At this order the scale uncertainty is 15 − 20%, depending on the cut, implying that a larger scale uncertainty should be used in current Tevatron bounds on the Higgs.