Threshold resummation of new partonic channels at next-to-leading power

Collider observables involving heavy particles are subject to large logarithmic terms near threshold, which must be summed to all orders in perturbation theory to obtain sensible results. Relatively recently, this resummation has been extended to next-to-leading power in the threshold variable, using a variety of approaches. In this paper, we consider partonic channels that turn on only at next-to-leading power, and show that it is possible to resum leading logarithms using well-established diagrammatic techniques in Quantum Chromodynamics. We first consider deep inelastic scattering, where we reproduce the results of a recent study using an effective theory approach. Next, we consider the quark-gluon channel in both Drell-Yan and Higgs boson production, showing that an explicit all-order form for the leading logarithmic partonic cross section can be obtained. Our results agree with previous conjectures based on fixed-order results.

Virtual corrections to gg → ZH via a transverse momentum expansion

We compute the next-to-leading virtual QCD corrections to the partonic cross section of the production of a Higgs boson in association with a Z boson in gluon fusion. The calculation is based on the recently introduced method of evaluating the amplitude via an expansion in terms of a small transverse momentum. We generalize the method to the case of different masses in the final state and of a process not symmetric in the forward-backward direction exchange. Our analytic approach gives a very good approximation (better than percent) of the partonic cross section in the center of mass energy region up to ∼ 750 GeV, where at the LHC ∼ 98% of the total hadronic cross section is concentrated.

Virtual corrections to gg → ZH in the high-energy and large-mt limits

We compute the next-to-leading order virtual corrections to the partonic cross-section of the processgg → ZH, in the high-energy and large-mtlimits. We use Padé approximants to increase the radius of convergence of the high-energy expansion in$$ {m}_t^2/s $$mt2/s,$$ {m}_t^2/t $$mt2/tand$$ {m}_t^2/u $$mt2/uand show that precise results can be obtained down to energies which are fairly close to the top quark pair threshold. We present results both for the form factors and the next-to-leading order virtual cross-section.