Resummation of jet-veto logarithms in hadronic processes containing jets

Abstract

We derive a factorization theorem for production of an arbitrary number of color-singlet particles accompanied by a fixed number of jets at the LHC. The jets are defined with the standard anti-$k_T$ algorithm, and the fixed number of jets is obtained by imposing a veto on additional radiation in the final state. The formalism presented here is useful for current Higgs boson analyses using exclusive jet bins, and for other studies using a similar strategy. The derivation uses the soft-collinear effective theory and assumes that the transverse momenta of the hard jets are larger than the veto scale. We resum the large Sudakov logarithms $\alpha_s^n \log^{2n-m}(p_T^{J}/p_T^{veto})$ up to the next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy, and present numerical results for Higgs boson production in association with a jet at the LHC. We comment on the experimentally-interesting parameter region in which we expect our factorization formula to hold.