Scalar-pseudoscalar pair production at the Large Hadron Collider at NLO+NLL accuracy in QCD

Abstract

We thoroughly investigate both transverse momentum and threshold resummation effects on scalar-pseudoscalar pair production via quark-antiquark annihilation at the $13\text{TeV}$ Large Hadron Collider at QCD NLO+NLL accuracy. A factorization method is introduced to properly supplement the soft-gluon (threshold) resummation contribution from parton distribution functions to the resummed results obtained by the Collins-Soper-Sterman resummation approach. We find that the impact of the threshold-resummation improved PDFs is comparable to the resummation effect of the partonic matrix element and can even predominate in high invariant mass regions. Moreover, the loop-induced gluon-gluon fusion channel in the type-I two-Higgs-doublet model is considered in our calculation. The numerical results show that the electroweak production via quark-antiquark annihilation dominates over the gluon-initiated QCD production by $1\sim 2$ orders of magnitude.

Comments: 29 pages, 6 figures