Abstract
We analyse the associated production of Higgs and Z boson via heavy-quark loops at the LHC in the Standard Model and beyond. We first review the main features of the Born 2 → 2 production, and in particular discuss the high-energy behaviour, angular distributions and Z boson polarisation. We then consider the effects of extra QCD radiation as described by the 2 → 3 loop matrix elements, and find that they dominate at high Higgs transverse momentum. We show how merged samples of 0- and 1-jet multiplicities, matched to a parton shower can provide a reliable description of differential distributions in ZH production. In addition to the Standard Model study, results in a generic two-Higgs-doublet-model are obtained and presented for a set of representative and experimentally viable benchmarks for Zh 0, ZH 0 and ZA 0 production. We observe that various interesting features appear either due to the resonant enhancement of the cross-section or to interference patterns between resonant and non-resonant contributions.
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Hespel, B., Maltoni, F. & Vryonidou, E. Higgs and Z boson associated production via gluon fusion in the SM and the 2HDM. J. High Energ. Phys. 2015, 65 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2015)065
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2015)065