Fragmentation in H->b bbar Processes

Abstract

I study bottom quark fragmentation in the Standard Model Higgs decay H->b bbar, within the framework of perturbative fragmentation functions. I resum large collinear logarithms ln(m_H^2/m_b^2) in the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) approximation, using the DGLAP evolution equations. Soft contributions to the MSbar coefficient function and to the initial condition of the perturbative fragmentation function are resummed to NLL accuracy as well. The implementation of collinear and soft resummation has a relevant impact on the b energy spectrum, which exhibits a milder dependence on factorization and renormalization scales and on the Higgs mass. I present some predictions on the energy distribution of b-flavoured hadrons in Higgs decay, making use of data from LEP and SLD experiments to fit a few hadronization models. I also compare the phenomenological results yielded by a few processes recently provided with NLL collinear and soft resummations.