Higgs boson decay into four leptons at NLOPS electroweak accuracy

Abstract

In view of precision studies of the Higgs sector at the Run II of the LHC, the improvement of the accuracy of the theoretical prediction is becoming a pressing issue. In this framework, we detail a calculation of the full Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) electroweak corrections to Higgs boson decay into four charged leptons, by considering the gold-plated channel H -> Z(*) Z(*) -> 2l 2l', l,l' = e, mu. We match the NLO corrections with a QED Parton Shower (PS), in order to simulate exclusive multiple photon emission and provide novel results at NLOPS electroweak accuracy. We compare our NLO predictions to those of the program Prophecy4f and present NLOPS phenomenological results relevant for Higgs physics studies, with particular attention to precision measurements of the Higgs boson mass, spin-parity assignment and tests of the Standard Model. Our calculation is implemented in a new code, Hto4l, which can be easily interfaced to any generator describing Higgs boson production. As an example, we provide illustrative results for Higgs production and decay in the process gg -> H -> 4l using POWHEG with NLOPS accuracy in the production mode.

27 pages, 2 tables, 9 figures. New numerical results and plots for dressed leptons. Conclusions unchanged. Version to appear in JHEP

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