2025/08/08 by A. M. Cooper-Sarkar, Cooper-Sarkar, Amanda M., Thomas Cridge +11 · 3 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics and Python Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.06603
openalex publication_date 2025/08/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this work, we examine the implications of electroweak corrections beyond leading order for processes of special interest in the Higgs sector. We especially explore the role of these corrections given the introduction of an explicit parton distribution function (PDF) for the photon in the proton, an object which emerges necessarily in global PDF fits which include QED effects (i.e., QED-enhanced PDFs). We concentrate on several representative cases, including total Higgs-production cross sections through gluon fusion, gg → H, vector-boson fusion (VBFH), and associated production, pp → VH; we also examine differential distributions, taking a representative Higgs-strahlung process, pp → W+H. We find that the recently developed LUX formalism for the photon PDF significantly stabilizes the PDF dependence of both QED-PDF and electroweak corrections in the Higgs sector, while leaving overall ∼ 3 - 4% cross-section-level variations, depending on the chosen QED-enhanced PDF. We illustrate this QED-enhanced PDF dependence by exploring predictions based upon recent analyses of the CTEQ-TEA, MSHT, and NNPDF analysis groups, fitted either at NNLO or approximate N3LO in QCD.