Higgs boson pair production at NNLO in QCD including dimension 6 operators

Understand

In this paper, we present the computation of the Higgs boson pair production cross section, both inclusive as well as differential on the invariant mass distribution, at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD including effects of new physics beyond the standard model.

• We parametrize the effects of new physics with the relevant dimension 6 operators in a standard model effective field theory (EFT) approach and examine their phenomenology.
• The dependence of the NNLO $K$-factor on the EFT couplings is analysed, finding that, while rather flat for a number of EFT coefficients, it can considerably differ from the standard model value in some particular regions of the parameter space.
• We present explicit examples of (almost) degeneracy in the NNLO cross-section with respect to the anomalous couplings, showing that the invariant mass distribution has a much larger sensitivity to phenomena beyond the standard model and can be used as a tool to discriminate their effect.