State-of-the-art electroweak Higgs boson pair production in association with two jets at the LHC in the Standard Model and beyond

Abstract

We present a systematic comparison of two state-of-the-art tools for the simulation of Higgs boson pair production via vector boson fusion (VBF) as implemented in the Monte- Carlo tools GoSam+Whizard and the POWHEG-BOX. The comparison is carried out at LO and NLO-QCD in the SM and at LO when considering anomalous couplings. We study the impact of parton-shower effects in the POWHEG-BOX within the VBF approximation. Cross sections and distributions are provided within the Standard Model and using a set of anomalous couplings, within scenarios typical for experimental physics analyses, and for a range of energies of relevance to the LHC and its upcoming high luminosity phase. We further perform a detailed study of the so-called VBF approximation, in particular in the presence of anomalous Higgs boson couplings.