Two-loop virtual corrections to Higgs pair production

Abstract

We present the two-loop virtual corrections to Standard Model Higgs boson pair production via gluon fusion $gg\to HH$ in the heavy top quark limit. Based on this result, we evaluate the corresponding cross section at the LHC at 14 TeV in the next-to-next-to-leading order soft-virtual approximation. We find an inclusive K-factor of about 2.4, resulting in an increase close to 23% with respect to the previous available calculation at next-to-leading order. As expected, we observe a considerable reduction in the renormalization and factorization scale dependence.