The Thrust Distribution at NNLO+NNLL in Higgs Decays to Quarks and Gluons

Abstract

We present a calculation of the thrust distribution in Higgs decays to quarks and gluons, $H\to b\bar{b}$, $H\to c\bar{c}$, and $H\to gg$, including the resummation of large logarithmic corrections that arise in the two-particle limit at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy, and match it to fixed-order results for three-particle decays at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in the strong coupling. The resummation is performed analytically within the ARES framework and combined with the fixed-order results using the logR matching technique. The fixed-order calculation is carried out numerically with the NNLOJET parton-level event generator, using the antenna subtraction method. We perform detailed cross-validation in the two-particle region, demonstrating that the expansion of the NNLL resummed result correctly reproduces the logarithmic structure of the fixed-order calculation to $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_{\mathrm{s}}^3)$, up to a predictable N${}^3$LL term at $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_{\mathrm{s}}^{3}L)$. In addition to providing the first NNLO+NNLL accurate predictions for the thrust distribution in Higgs decays to quarks and gluons, we analytically extract the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_{\mathrm{s}}^2)$ hard-virtual correction $c_2$ and the ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{s}}^{3}L$ term $G_{31}$ in both the $H\to q\bar{q}$ ($q=b,c$) and $H\to gg$ decay channels.