NNLO corrections to the total cross section for Higgs boson production in hadron-hadron collisions

Abstract

We present the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections to the total cross section for (pseudo-) scalar Higgs boson production using an alternative method than those used in previous calculations. All QCD partonic subprocesses have been included and the computation is carried out in the effective Lagrangian approach which emerges from the standard model by taking the limit \(m_t \to \infty\) where \(m_t\) denotes the mass of the top quark. Our results agree with those published earlier in the literature. We estimate the theoretical uncertainties by comparing the \(K\)-factors and the variation with respect to the mass factorization/renormalization scales with the results obtained by lower order calculations. We also investigate the dependence of the cross section on several parton density sets provided by different groups. Further we study which part of the coefficient functions dominates the cross section. This is of interest for the resummation of large corrections which occur near the boundary of phase space. It turns out that depending on the definition of the total cross section the latter is dominated by the the soft-plus-virtual gluon corrections represented by \(\delta(1-x)\) and \((\ln^i(1-x)/(1-x))_+\) terms. PACS numbers: 12.38.-t, 12.38.Bx, 13.85.-t, 14.80.Gt.