Energy-energy correlation in hadronic Higgs decays: analytic results and phenomenology at NLO

In this work we complete the investigation of the recently introduced energy-energy correlation (EEC) function in hadronic Higgs decays at next-to-leading order (NLO) in fixed-order perturbation theory in the limit of vanishing light quark masses. The full analytic NLO result for the previously unknown EEC in the H → $$ q\overline{q} $$ q q ¯ + X channel is given in terms of classical polylogarithms and cross-checked against a numerical calculation. In addition to that, we discuss further corrections to predictions of the Higgs EEC event shape variable, including quark mass corrections, effects of parton shower and hadronization. We also estimate the statistical error on the measurements of the Higgs EEC at future Higgs factories and compare with the current perturbative uncertainty.

Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

The lectures that appear within this chapter provide an introduction to soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). It begins by discussing resummation for soft-photon effects in QED, including soft photons in electron–electron scattering and the expansion of loop integrals and the method of regions event-shape variables. It then covers SCET specifically, including the method of regions for the Sudakov form factor, effective Lagrangians, the vector current in SCET, and resummation by renormalization group (RG) evolution. It covers applications of SCET in jet physics, describes the characteristic feature in jet processes of Sudakov logarithms, and discusses factorization for the event-shape variable thrust and factorization and resummation for jet cross sections.