NNLO+PS Higgs-pair production in MiNNLOPS

Abstract

We consider Higgs-boson pair production in gluon fusion at hadron colliders and match next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD corrections to parton showers within the MiNNLO$_{PS}$ framework. Since the full top-quark mass dependence at this order is not available, finite top-quark mass effects are incorporated through approximations based on the exact NLO QCD result, using the available two-loop amplitude in the full theory. Specifically, the Born, single-virtual, single-real and double-real contributions are included exactly, while the real--virtual and double-virtual corrections are approximated. We consider different approximations for the latter to assess the associated uncertainties. We validate our predictions against fixed-order NNLO QCD results and compare with existing NNLO calculations matched to parton shower from GENEVA, where in some cases we find noticeable differences. Finally, we present phenomenological results for different Higgs-decay channels and variations of the trilinear Higgs coupling. Our MiNNLO$_{PS}$ generator for Higgs-boson pair production is available within the POWHEG-BOX-RES framework.