- Open Access
Hadron production through Higgs boson decay at next-to-leading order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme
Phys. Rev. D 113, 076014 – Published 15 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5pkw-8kh7
Abstract
It is known that about 60% of all Higgs bosons produced at the CERN-LHC decay into a pair of bottom quarks. Bottoms quickly hadronize, in most cases, into bottom-flavored (B) hadrons before they decay. Therefore, the study of scaled-energy distribution of B mesons in the decay process can be considered as a channel to search for the Higgs characteristics. In all previous studies, authors have ignored the mass effect of b quarks as well as B mesons by working in the massless scheme. In this work we, for the first time, study the mass effect of b quarks as well as produced mesons on the scaled-energy () distribution of B mesons by working in the massive scheme or general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme. We find that the meson mass is responsible for a significant enhancement of partial decay width in the low- region while the b quark mass leads to an enhancement of the partial decay rate in the peak region and above.
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