text:
# GRENOUILLE - Practical issues: a quick manual

## I Initial Considerations

Frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) consists of an autocorrelator with its output going into a spectrometer connected to a CCD camera fpr ; firstp ; fg ; rev . The CCD camera records a spectrogram called the FROG trace (Fig.5 \- 3 dimensional graph with intensity as a function of time delay on the horizontal axis and wavelength on the vertical axis). From this spectrogram, the full electric field (intensity and phase) can be reconstructed with the aid of a numerical interactive algorithm. The mathematical form of the FROG trace depends on the nonlinearity used to generate it. For a second harmonic generating (SHG) crystal, the FROG trace is proportional to Equation (1), where the proportionality constant is divided out when the results are presented.

$$I_{FROG}(\omega ,\tau )=|_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑tE(t)E(t\tau )exp(i\omega t)|^2$$
(1)
GRENOUILLE (grading-eliminated no-nonsense observation of ultrafast incident laser light e-fields) is the simplest SHG FROG device ever built pat . A typical FROG device has a delay line, the nonlinear medium and a spectrometer. GRENOUILLE replaces the delay line by a Fresnel biprism and combines the spectrometer and the nonlinear medium into a thick SHG crystal. The thick nonlinear crystal works as a frequency filter due to the large group velocity mismatch (GVM $`1/v_g(\lambda _0/2)1/v_g(\lambda _0)`$) pat . The working condition for the GRENOUILLE requires that $`GVM\times L\tau _t`$, where L is the confocal parameter (the length of the crystal can be used for order of magnitude calculations) and $`\tau _t`$ the time duration of the pulse, that can be taken to be the full width at half maximum of the pulse being measured. Group velocity dispersion (GVD $`1/v_g(\lambda _0\delta \lambda /2)1/v_g(\lambda _0+\delta \lambda /2)`$) can be avoided by imposing the extra relation $`GVD\times L\tau _c`$, where $`\tau _c`$ is the pulse coherence time (approximately the reciprocal bandwidth, 1/$`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$) pat . These two conditions are combined in Equations (2) and (3), where TBP stands for time bandwidth product.

$$GVD\left(\frac{\tau _t}{\tau _c}\right)\frac{\tau _t}{L}GVM$$
(2)
$$\frac{GVM}{GVD}TBP=\left(\frac{\tau _t}{\tau _c}\right)$$
(3)
Consider a transform limited (TBP $`1`$) input pulse with center wavelength of $`800`$ $`nm`$ and a FWHM of $`\delta \lambda `$ = $`10`$ $`nm`$. Consider also a $`5`$ $`mm`$ thick BBO crystal. Equation (2) results in inequality (4) which shows that the crystal is appropriate for measuring the input beam pat .

$$GVD=20fs/cm200fs/cmGVM=2000fs/nm$$
(4)
As a counter example, consider a pulse with TBP $`10`$. Suppose that we have a bandwidth of the order of $`\delta \lambda 20`$ $`nm`$ and hence a pulse time length of the order of $`100`$ $`fs`$. Equation (2) is not satisfied for the $`5`$ $`mm`$ BBO crystal. Table (1) presents a comparison for the case TBP $`10`$ and center wavelength $`\lambda _c800`$ $`nm`$.

| $`\delta \lambda (nm)`$ | $`TBP\times GVD(fs/cm)`$ | $`\tau _p/L(fs/cm)`$ | $`GVM(fs/cm)`$ | Works? |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 20 | 330 | 200 | 2000 | No |
| 10 | 200 | 400 | 2000 | No |
| 5 | 113 | 800 | 2000 | Might |

## II Experimental Setup

GRENOUILLE simplest experimental setup is presented in Figure 1, where the vertical axis of a measured FROG trace is automatically aligned to be wavelength and the horizontal axis, time delay. Folding mirrors can be included to further reduce the final size of the setup (the commercial GRENOUILLE is a small rectangular box of $`5cm\times 15cm\times 25cm`$)but that does not change the experimental set in any essential way.

The alignment has to closely achieve Figure 1 configuration with the second harmonic going in the center of the CCD camera and the fundamental beams being blocked by the slit. All the distances shown in Figure 1 are within $`2`$ $`mm`$ for an ideal FROG trace (It seems enough to use a ruler to measure these distances). It is ”easy” to get some SHG ”trace”, the problem is to have a good quality trace and also to be sure what has been measured is indeed a FROG trace. After the initial alignment, fine adjustments to the imaging system as well as the position of the input cylindrical lens have to be done. The distance between the input cylindrical lens and the crystal is found by maximizing the intensity of the second harmonic beam after the crystal. The position as well as function of each element in GRENOUILLE is now discussed.

### II.1 Input beam

The size of the input beam determines the range of wavelength and time delay seen in the FROG trace and consequently limits the spectral range as well as time range of the pulse to be measured.

The spectrometer in traditional FROG apparatus is replaced by the thick non-linear crystal and by the size of the input beam. The thick crystal determines the resolution and the input beam the range.

The range of angles covered by focusing the input beam inside the nonlinear crystal determines the wavelength range that can be measured by GRENOUILLE. Figure 2 shows that only a small wavelength range is phase matched at each angle (the smallness of wavelength range is determined by the crystal filtering). This mechanism creates at each angle $`\alpha `$ or $`\beta `$ a small range of wavelength that is further mapped into the CCD camera.

Consider the GRENOUILLE constructed with a BBO crystal and designed to work with input beams from $`10`$ $`mm`$ to $`20`$ $`mm`$ at a center wavelength of $`810`$ $`nm`$. Beams with waist of about $`10`$ $`mm`$ have a range of angles inside a BBO crystal of about $`1.72^0`$. Phase matching angle for $`810`$ $`nm`$ is about $`28.9^0`$, for $`860`$ $`nm`$ is about $`27.3^0`$ hand ; thick . From these values, the wavelength range with a $`10`$ $`mm`$ input beam is about $`810\pm 25`$ $`nm`$.

The wavelength range increase of the GRENOUILLE can not be achieved by simply increasing the vertical size of the input beam. The confocal parameter has to be considered, since it is the effective length of the crystal. Bigger input beam waist also implies smaller confocal parameter. Smaller confocal parameter might also imply violation of Expression (2) , the fundamental condition for GRENOUILLE to work.

The delay line in traditional FROG traces is replaced by the horizontal beam waist and the Fresnel biprism. The range of the time delay axis is given by the size of the horizontal beam waist crossed inside the crystal through the action of the biprism (Fig. 3). The expression for the delay is just given by the size of the horizontal crossed trace inside the crystal ($`D`$) and by the angle ($`\theta `$) formed by the crossed beams (Eq. 5 ) thick ; practic .

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =\frac{D\times \mathrm{sin}\theta }{c}$$
(5)
For an input beam size of $`10`$ $`mm`$, BBO crystal, and a Fresnel biprism with apex angle $`168^0`$, the delay axis is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau 2.3`$ $`ps`$.

### II.2 Fresnel Biprism

The function of the Fresnel biprism pat  is to create from the input beam two beams that cross inside the nonlinear crystal (Fig. 3). The position of the biprism between the focusing lens and the nonlinear crystal can be chosen to adjust the range of the delay axis. The maximum delay axis for a given crystal is calculated with Equation 5 where the input horizontal beam size plays a fundamental role discussed in the previous section.

The optimal size of the delay axis does not need to be the maximum delay size achievable with a given GRENOUILLE setup. The required condition for the range of the delay axis is to include the majority of the FROG trace. The FROG trace has to show all its intensities including its outer edges (horizontal outer edges may be clipped for time delay axis that are not wide enough). The smallest delay axis range that shows the full FROG trace is the optimum delay axis range. Smaller delay axis give better quality FROG traces since more of the fundamental beam is concentrated on the area of the second harmonic conversion increasing the intensity of the trace.

For an input beam of $`10`$ $`mm`$ (horizontal waist), the distance between the BBO crystal and the Fresnel biprism that maximizes the delay axis is about $`100`$ $`mm`$. In practice, one can search for the best position by looking at the FROG trace while moving the Fresnel biprism in between the crystal and the focusing lens.

The Fresnel biprism can be mounted on a fixed optical mount. Rotation on the perpendicular plane of figure 1 or tilt towards the nonlinear crystal or the focusing cylindrical lens is not needed, as long as the input focusing cylindrical lens can be rotated on the plane perpendicular to the plane of figure 1. The rotation degree of freedom is critical for the fine adjustments on GRENOUILLE’s alignment. Rotating the input cylindrical lens, helps aligning the reflection symmetry about the wavelength axis inherent in the GRENOUILLE FROG traces (SHG FROG trace is even with respect to the delay).

### II.3 Nonlinear Crystal

The Nonlinear crystal is chosen to meet the requirements given in Equations (2) and (3). The combination of the input beam and nonlinear crystal is equivalent to a spectrometer where the resolution is determined by the nonlinear crystal.

The second harmonic generated pulse intensity from a nonlinear crystal is given in the frequency space ($`\omega `$) by Equation (6), where L is the length of the crystal, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$K the phase matching condition and GVM the group velocity mismatch between the fundamental and the SHG beam diels . The $`sinc^2`$ ($`sinc=sinx/x`$) term limits the bandwidth for the SHG pulse. The bandwidth becomes narrower with the increase of GVM and also narrower with the length ($`L`$) increase of the crystal. Hence to increase filtering, maximum GVM$`\times L`$ is a desired quality for the Nonlinear crystal, which leads to the fundamental conditions for GRENOUILLE to work (Eqs. (2,3)).

$$S(\omega )L^2\times sinc^2\left[\left(GVM\times \omega \mathrm{\Delta }k\right)\frac{L}{2}\right]\times \left|_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\xi \left(\omega \omega ^{^{}}\right)\xi \left(\omega ^{^{}}\right)𝑑\omega ^{^{}}\right|^2$$
(6)
The bandwidth of the filtering process is calculated using Sellmeier equations hand ; thick  and depends on the confocal parameter of the focused input beam inside the nonlinear crystal. Most of the SHG takes place along the confocal parameter which then defines the effective length of the crystal. The minimum bandwidth in a setup for a given nonlinear crystal is achieved with a confocal parameter of the length of the crystal. A BBO crystal $`5`$ $`mm`$ long with the input beam at $`800`$ $`nm`$ has the minimum bandwidth of about $`2.5`$ $`nm`$. The bandwidth for a confocal parameter of $`2`$ $`mm`$ is approximately $`2.8`$ $`nm`$ even though the crystal is still $`5`$ $`mm`$ long pat .

The most important point in aligning the nonlinear crystal is to set the principal plane on the vertical plane of the table (for the set up of Figs. 1 and 2). The polarization of the incoming beam should be parallel to the line focus of the incoming cylindrical lens. This will guarantee that the vertical axis is the wavelength axis. It is important to phrase this point since one can always have SHG generation, even with the crystal at the wrong orientation. With the crystal correctly set, one should see 3 SHG beams at the same height. The FROG trace is the center beam. Translating the crystal on the plane perpendicular to the incoming beam might be helpful to avoid defects on the surface of the crystal. Tilting and rotating the crystal helps on the alignment since phase matching is angle dependent.

### II.4 Imaging System

The function of the imaging system is to take the FROG trace generated by the nonlinear crystal and image it on the surface of the CCD array. The combination spherical lens and cylindrical lens (Fig. 1) is assembled back to back on a mount with rotational degree of freedom. These combination creates a vertical focus of $`f=100`$ $`mm`$ and a horizontal focus of $`f=50`$ $`mm`$.

The vertical direction of the imaging lens maps the wavelength dependent angle from the FROG trace onto the surface of the CCD array as in Figure 4. The position on the camera ($`x`$) is a nearly linear relation of the wavelength ($`\lambda `$).

The time delay axis is collected by the horizontal direction of the imaging lenses and directed into the CCD camera. In this set up (Fig.1 ), the size of the FROG trace along the time delay axis on the CCD array is equal to the one produced by the crystal.

The position of the CCD camera is set to have the FROG trace in the center. The FROG algorithm needs as an input parameter the center wavelength, which is half of the center wavelength of the pulse being measured only at the center of FROG trace.

The resolution of the Frame grabber and CCD camera has to be higher if the FROG trace is more complex. For simple traces (such as Gaussian pulses), having a FROG trace of size $`64\times 64`$ pixels is enough to recover the correct phase and intensity of the input pulse practic . For this setup (Fig.(4)), the resolution used is $`512\times 480`$ pixels.

The overall alignment of the GRENOUILLE has to achieve a time delay symmetrical FROG trace located at the center of the frame grabber view area.

### II.5 Calibration

The scale for the wavelength axis and time delay axis is found with the aide of an Etalon. The etalon also helps in lifting the time direction ambiguity inherent in GRENOUILLE (SHG) FROG fg . An air spaced etalon with spacing $`d`$ produces pulses separated by $`2d/c`$ in time, where $`c`$ is the velocity of light in air. The resultant pulse trace has features that can be used to calibrate both time and wavelength axis. The direction of time is also known since the second pulse coming out of the etalon is always of lower intensity than the first. Figure 5 shows a FROG trace after an air spaced etalon with $`d=50`$ $`\mu m`$. The features used to calibrate GRENOUILLE are the modulations both in the horizontal and vertical axis. The modulations on the delay axis are separated by $`2d/c`$. Measuring the number of pixels separating the modulations gives the scale for the delay axis ($`2d/(c\times \mathrm{\#}pixels)`$).

The vertical modulations are related to the horizontal modulations by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau \mathrm{\Delta }f=1`$. Using this relation to find the wavelength separation of the vertical modulations, one only needs to divide the wavelength separation by the number of pixels.

Typical values for the set up of Figure 1 and for the trace in Figure 5 are, for the horizontal axis (time delay), $`8`$ $`fs/pixel`$ and for the vertical axis (wavelength) $`0.14`$ $`nm/pixels`$.

Errors in the calibration induce errors in the recovered pulse. The size of the error in the recovered electric field is at least of the same size of the error in the calibration. An error of 20% in the time delay axis leads to an error of at least 20% in the time width of the recovered electric field. The exact influence of the error in the calibration depends on the complexity of the pulse to be measured and generally is bigger for more complicated pulses shp .

## III FROG Pulse Retrieval Algorithm

The final goal of FROG is to determine the complex electric field from the FROG trace. This is done with the aid of a numerical algorithm that starts with an initial guess of the complex electric field and iterates to the measured electric field. The algorithm assumes two constraints. The first is the form of the electric field generated by the nonlinearity in use. For SHG, the electric field is given by Equation (7). The second constraint is the experimentally acquired FROG trace which is given by Eq.(8) or Eq.(1). Extra constrains are reported to create instabilities in the algorithm (for instance overflow), including adding an independent measured spectrum as one of the constrains rev .

$$E_{sig}(t,\tau )=E(t)E(t\tau )$$
(7)
$$I_{FROG}(\omega ,\tau )=|_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑tE_{sig}(t,\tau )exp(i\omega t)|^2$$
(8)
The algorithm works as presented in Figure (6). The initial guess can be any electric field, the outcome should not depend on the initial guess, but the convergence time is minimized for clever guesses. The commercial code (Femtosoft) gives 4 options for initial guesses but does not allow for external input.

Once the initial guess is chosen the algorithm enters into a loop. The steps in the loop depend on the details of the algorithm. There are at least 8 different algorithms that can be used fg ; gpr . The most common can be found in the commercial versions of the FROG algorithms (Femtosoft and MarkTech), they are: the Basic FROG (or Vanilla FROG, first algorithm created), Generalized Projections, Short-cut Generalized Projections,Projections Over-Step, Intensity Constrained Basic FROG, Over-Correction Basic FROG and Multidimensional Minimization Technique fg .

The algorithm that has been reported as most robust and responsible for the success of FROG is Generalized Projections gp . Generalized Projection was shown to converge to the real pulse for all FROG traces where the other algorithms fail. Generalized Projections works as follows. The first step (step 1), $`E_{sig}`$ is constructed with Equation (7) and then $`I_{FROG}`$ is calculated with a fast Fourier transform (step 2). In step 3 the calculated $`I_{FROG}`$ has its magnitude replaced by the magnitude of the measured FROG trace (Eq.(9)). In step 4, $`E_{sig}^{^{}}(t,\tau )`$ is constructed by taking the inverse Fourier transform. Until now all the steps are also true for the vanilla FROG algorithm. While the Vanilla FROG takes step 5 only by integrating $`E_{sig}(t,\tau )`$ on $`\tau `$ to get back $`E(t)`$, Generalized Projections takes step 5 by introducing distance minimization ($`Z`$) between $`E_{sig}^{^{}}(t,\tau )`$ and $`E(t)E(t\tau )`$ to get $`E(t)`$ back (Eq.(10)). Once the Step 5 is complete, the cycle is reinitiated.

$$E_{sig}^{^{}}(t,\tau )=\frac{E_{sig}(t,\tau )}{|E_{sig}(t,\tau )|}\times [I_{FROG}(\omega ,\tau )]^{1/2}$$
(9)
$$Z=\underset{t,\tau =1}{\overset{N}{}}|E_{sig}^{^{}}(t,\tau )E(t)E(t\tau )|^2$$
(10)
$$G=[\frac{1}{N^2}\underset{\omega ,\tau =1}{\overset{N}{}}[I_{FROG}(\omega ,\tau )|E_{sig}(\omega ,\tau )|^2]^2]^{1/2}$$
(11)
The error in the pulse retrieval ($`G`$) is measured with the FROG error (Eq.(11)), where $`N`$ is the grid size of the FROG trace and $`|E_{sig}(\omega ,\tau )|^2`$ is normalized to a pick value of unity before $`G`$ is calculated shp . The size of the FROG error decreases after each loop and typical error values depend on the quality of the trace and on the size of the grid. The program converges to the correct pulse for values of the error less than $`10^4`$ for noise-free pulses (theoretical traces). It is not uncommon to achieve errors less than $`0.5\%`$ for good quality simple SHG traces $`128\times 128`$ in size.

The quality of the traces and hence the minimum error ($`G`$) level achievable when using the FROG algorithm depends on the noise level when recording the trace. For multiplicative noise ($`I_{FROGNoise}=I_{FROG}\times (1+noise)`$), $`Ge\times (TBP/N)^{1/2}`$, where TBP is time-bandwidth product of the pulse, $`e`$ is the error in the trace data points where the trace is nonzero and $`N\times N`$ is the array size. For additive noise ($`I_{FROGNoise}=I_{FROG}+noise`$) the error is $`Ge`$ fg ; noise .

Despite the success of Generalized Projections to find the intensity and phase of a light pulse, this technique, as well as any other technique, is not proven to converge for all pulses. The strategy adopted in the commercial programs, is to combine several algorithms into the program and to switch between them during a run. The commercial Femtosoft algorithm switches between strategy everytime the error does not decrease by $`0.5\%`$. This approach hopes to combine the strength of all the strategies and eventually cover all the possible FROG traces found in nature.

### III.1 Practical issues when using Femtosoft FROG pulse recovery program

If pulse to be recovered is not theoretical, noise filtering is appropriate. It is customary to first remove the lowest pixel and then the edge of the data in the window after the trace has been imported into the program. This operation should be done only once to avoid clipping the low intensity data.

After noise filtering the data has to be extracted for the program to initiate its cycle. It is possible to extract only a small window around the FROG trace avoiding the background noise by selecting with the mouse the desired area. This will result into a smother recovered electric field but the algorithm has a recently discovered bug. This operation will rescale the wavelength axis incorrectly.

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank Pat O’Shea and Mark Kimmel for the indispensable counsel of how to set up GRENOUILLE. In special, I thank Pat O’Shea for detailed discussion on the basics of FROG and GRENOUILLE. I also thank Bhaskar Khubchandani with direct help in setting up GRENOUILLE. Finally, I thank Prof. Rajarshi Roy for advice, guidance and logistic support, without which this work would have not been possible.


format: text

text:
# Associated Production of a Top Quark and a Charged Higgs Boson

## I Introduction

The elucidation of electroweak symmetry breaking is an important goal of particle physics. In the standard model, one neutral scalar Higgs boson is assumed to exist, and it is associated with the generation of the masses of the electroweak gauge bosons and of the fermions. The neutral Higgs boson has not yet been observed, and direct searches place a lower limit of about $`114\mathrm{GeV}`$ on its mass lep . Extensions of the standard model include the possibility of more Higgs fields. The minimal supresymmetric standard model (MSSM) requires two doublets to give mass to up-type and down-type fermions and to cancel anomalies. The doublets yield five physical Higgs bosons: two neutral CP-even states, a CP-odd state, and a pair of charged scalars. At lowest order in perturbation theory, the masses and couplings of these states depend on two parameters which may be chosen as the pseudoscalar mass $`m_A`$ and the ratio of the two vacuum-expectation values $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =v_2/v_1`$. Comprehensive analyses have been performed of the expected coverage of the $`(\mathrm{tan}\beta ,m_A)`$ parameter space at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ATLASCMS . While the observation of at least one of the two CP even Higgs bosons may not pose a problem for the LHC nolose , it will be challenging to distinguish it from its standard model counterpart over a large fraction of the parameter space. For small values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ the only viable channel in which to observe a heavy Higgs boson could be the resonant production of the scalar $`H`$ with subsequent decay to $`hhb\overline{b}\gamma \gamma `$ neutral\_pairs , where $`b`$ is a bottom quark. For large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, the identification of a charged Higgs boson would provide evidence for a Higgs sector beyond the standard model, meaning at least two Higgs doublets, and possibly a supersymmetric Higgs sector.

If the charged Higgs boson is lighter than the top quark $`t`$, there is a good chance that it will be discovered via the decay channel $`tbH^+`$ in $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at the Tevatron collider at $`2\mathrm{TeV}`$, or in $`pp`$ collisions at the LHC at $`14\mathrm{TeV}`$. Searches in the Run I data samples by the CDF and D0 collaborations at the Tevatron tev  place significant bounds on the mass $`m_H`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. If the charged Higgs boson is heavier than the top quark, then its observation at hadron colliders becomes more problematic. In particular, there is no tree level coupling of a single charged Higgs boson to gauge boson pairs, and the production of $`H^\pm `$ is inaccessible in weak boson fusion. The cross section for $`H^+H^{}`$ pair production is likely to be too small, and the heavy quark backgrounds may be too large for the observation of charged Higgs boson pairs, unless additional supersymmetric particles enhance this loop-induced rate charged\_pairs\_dy ; charged\_pairs\_gg . The situation is similar for the associated production of a charged Higgs boson with a $`W`$ boson. The standard model leads to a fairly small rate, but supersymmetric particle loops might enhance the rate considerably charged\_hw ; zhu\_hollik .

The most promising search channel for a heavy $`H^\pm `$ is the associated production of a top quark and the charged Higgs boson $`pptH^{}+X`$ and $`pp\overline{t}H^++X`$ via the intermediary of a bottom quark coupling charged\_th . Throughout this paper we present results only for the $`tH^{}`$ channel, unless stated otherwise. If both the $`tH^{}`$ and $`\overline{t}H^+`$ channels are included the rates increase by a factor of two. Advanced detector simulation studies have been done for the decay channels $`H^{}\overline{t}b`$ dec\_top  and $`H^{}\tau \overline{\nu }`$ dec\_tau . The advantage of this production mode is that the Yukawa coupling to a top quark and a bottom quark is enhanced by a power of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ for large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, as are the bottom quark Yukawa couplings of the heavy neutral Higgs bosons.

We consider the leading order partonic subprocess to be

$$gbtH^{},$$
(1)
with the initial state bottom quark taken as a constituent of an incident proton. The set of next-to-leading order subprocesses includes partonic reactions such as $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$. The total rate for the process $`pp\overline{b}tH^{}+X`$ receives large corrections from collinear logarithms, originating from the radiation of a forward bottom quark jet bottom1 ; old . These logarithmic terms can be resummed to all orders in the strong coupling strength $`\alpha _s`$, leading to the bottom parton picture bottom1  with an appropriate bottom quark factorization scale old ; bottom2 ; scott . This resummation of large collinear logarithms is valid not only for charged Higgs boson production, but it is generic as long as there is a large mass scale $`M`$ that provides $`\mathrm{log}(M/p_{T,b})`$ behavior. In our case $`M=m_t+m_H`$. The comparison of higher order predictions for total cross sections of neutral Higgs boson production shows impressive agreement between gluon-initiated and bottom parton results bbh\_nlo ; robert , but the absence of a heavy scale in neutral Higgs boson production in association with bottom quarks may have an impact on some final state distributions.

The $`tH^{}`$ production cross section can be evaluated with or without integration over the phase space of the final state bottom quark, corresponding to whether an accompanying final state bottom quark is observed or ignored. The term “exclusive” is generally used to refer to a situation in which the final state bottom quark is observed, and “inclusive” is used to refer to the case in which the final state bottom quark is ignored.

Calculations of the next-to-leading order (NLO) total cross section for $`pptH^{}+X`$ are available in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD) zhu ; old  as well as in supersymmetric QCD old ; Gao:2002is . If we use the same choice of parameters, most importantly the same renormalization and factorization scales, and the same scheme for renormalization for the Yukawa couplings, our numerical results are in good agreement with those of Ref. zhu . We comment in greater detail in Sec. II C about the differences in scheme choice. The inclusion of NLO contributions to the $`gb`$ initial state process merges the “inclusive-type” process $`gbtH^{}`$ with the “exclusive-type” process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$, whose contribution appears as part of the set of NLO diagrams. The NLO contributions increase the reliability of the theoretical predictions by reducing the renormalization and factorization scale dependence of the total rate.

In this paper, we present fully differential NLO cross sections for the process $`gbtH^{}`$. The differential distributions are desirable, as are predictions of expected correlations among the final state observables, since selections on final state kinematic variables must be made in experimental studies, for reasons of event acceptance and background rejection. In Sec. II, we outline the two-cutoff phase-space slicing method which we adopt. We then study the NLO production rates at the LHC and the Tevatron with the associated theoretical uncertainties. We present typical kinematic distributions and momentum correlations in Sec. III. For searches in the framework of the MSSM we examine the effects of leading and sub-leading supersymmetric QCD corrections in Sec. IV. Conclusions are summarized in Sec. V.

The results in this paper go beyond those of Refs. old ; zhu  in several respects. The calculation presented in Ref. old  uses a one-cutoff method for NLO calculations. The two-cutoff method in this paper permits a fully differential treatment of the final state particles. In this paper, we show that the bottom parton approach is justified for differential cross sections as well as for total cross sections. A more extensive discussion of cutoff dependences is presented in this paper including two-dimensional plots. In our treatment of SUSY-QCD corrections in Sec. IV, we include an evaluation for the Snowmass points and slopes (SPS) parameters and the impact of resummation of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections. Going beyond Ref. zhu , we include SUSY-QCD corrections, and an exploration of the interplay of bottom parton and gluonic contributions. The matching of cross sections for small charged Higgs boson masses is new. Matching near the top decay threshold is of considerable interest for LHC experiments.

## II Next-to-leading Order QCD Corrections

Throughout the paper we use a running strong coupling $`\alpha _s`$, a bottom quark Yukawa coupling $`y_b`$, and a top quark Yukawa coupling $`y_t`$ consistent with the order of perturbation theory, i.e. one–loop running for the leading order and two–loop running for the next-to-leading order results. If not stated explicitly otherwise we neglect the bottom quark mass $`m_b`$ in the phase space as well as in the matrix elements, while naturally keeping it in the bottom quark Yukawa coupling. The Yukawa coupling is normalized to $`m_b(m_b)=4.2\mathrm{GeV}`$ and a bottom quark pole mass of $`4.6\mathrm{GeV}`$. Moreover, we use the CTEQ5 parton densities cteq5 . We refer to the $`K`$ factor defined by $`K=\sigma _{\mathrm{NLO}}/\sigma _{\mathrm{LO}}`$, the ratio of the NLO cross section over the leading order cross section. The default choices of the renormalization scale and the factorization scale are taken to be proportional to the hard scale in the process old ; bottom2

$$\mu _R^0=M/2\mu _F^0=M/5(M=m_H+m_t).$$
(2)
A detailed explanation of these choices may be found in Sec. II B.

At leading order in QCD we start from the parton-level production process in Eq. (1), with the diagrams depicted in Fig. 1. It is appropriate to define the bottom quark as a parton at high energies since the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) evolution equation Dokshitzer:1977sg  resums large logarithmic $`\mathrm{log}p_{T,b}`$ contributions from small $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{min}}m_b`$ to a maximum value $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}`$ (which in turn determines the $`b`$-quark factorization scale). The bottom parton density is therefore not suppressed by a simple power of $`\alpha _s`$. The leading order cross section for a process involving one incoming bottom parton and an incoming gluon is of order $`\alpha _sy_{b,t}^2`$, where $`y_{b,t}`$ is the bottom-top-Higgs Yukawa coupling. If $`y_{b,t}`$ is written as $`y_{b,t}^2=y_t^2+y_b^2`$, $`y_t`$ and $`y_b`$ are terms proportional to $`(m_t/\mathrm{tan}\beta )`$ and $`(m_b\mathrm{tan}\beta )`$ respectively. For large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, $`y_{b,t}`$ is dominated by $`y_b`$. The validity of our choice of the process in Eq. (1) as the leading contribution is confirmed by our numerical results, namely that the perturbative series is well behaved over a wide range of scales.

There are two classes of NLO contributions:

* Virtual gluon exchange corrections to the lowest order process and the corresponding real gluon emission corrections, both of order $`\alpha _s^2y_{b,t}^2`$,

$`gb`$ $`tH^{}\text{(virtual correction)}`$
$`gb`$ $`tH^{}g.`$ (3)
* The purely gluon-initiated and the purely quark-initiated diagrams, which lead to cross sections also of the order $`\alpha _s^2y_{b,t}^2`$,

$`gg,q\overline{q},b\overline{b}`$ $`tH^{}\overline{b},bbtH^{}b,`$
$`b\overline{q}`$ $`tH^{}\overline{q},bqtH^{}q.`$ (4)

Because we neglect the bottom quark mass in the phase space and in the matrix elements, the purely gluon and purely quark initiated subprocesses are divergent in the collinear limit. In our calculation these divergences are removed through mass factorization, i.e. the proper definition of all parton densities at NLO.

One may think about an alternative treatment of the associated production process, namely to start with the process $`ggtH^{}\overline{b}`$ as the leading contribution. These diagrams are part of the $`\alpha _s`$ correction to the bottom–gluon fusion process. For a choice of the factorization scales $`\mu _{F,g}=\mu _{F,b}m_b`$ the bottom parton density vanishes, in contrast to the gluon density, which is stable and well defined down to scales of the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. In a physical picture of this limit we consistently switch off all large collinear logarithmic contributions, because $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}\mu _{F,b}`$. We are then left with only the purely light-flavor $`q\overline{q}`$ and $`gg`$ induced processes listed in Eq. (4). We use this limit of a small bottom quark factorization scale in Sec. III to check the impact of the bottom parton picture on the final-state differential cross sections.

### II.1 Phase-space slicing

One of the main tasks of our calculation is to integrate the three-body matrix elements over the phase space of the unobserved particle in the final state. The situation is different from the case of the single particle inclusive calculation in which one integrates over the phase space of two particles in the final state. We wish to retain control over the kinematic variables of a second particle in the final state, while at the same time integrating over enough of the phase space to ensure cancellation of all infrared and collinear divergences. Several techniques have been introduced for these purposes. The phase-space slicing slicing ; brian  and the subtraction methods subtract  are two ways to extract the singularities in the real emission contributions as exclusively as possible. All relevant information needed to compute a $`22`$ particle NLO cross section with the two–cutoff slicing method is compiled in Ref. brian . We follow this description closely in our calculations.

The ultraviolet divergences in the virtual $`22`$ corrections are handled with dimensional regularization. The heavy final state masses are renormalized in the on-shell scheme, while all couplings — the strong coupling as well as the bottom quark and the top quark Yukawa couplings — are renormalized in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme. The mismatch of the pre-factors between the virtual corrections and the counter terms leads to the usual explicit $`\mathrm{log}\mu _R`$ dependence of the NLO cross section on the renormalization scale. The choice of the renormalization scale $`\mu _R`$ and that of the factorization scale $`\mu _F`$ are discussed in Sec. II.2.

Virtual gluon exchange and real parton emission lead to both soft and collinear divergences. They are extracted with dimensional regularization and partially canceled with each other and partially removed through mass factorization, i.e. the consistent definition of parton densities. The situation is relatively simple for processes that have different initial states from the leading order $`gb`$ case because no soft divergence appears. Schematically, we can write the contributions arising from the processes in Eq. (4) as:

$$d\sigma _q=d\sigma _{23,q}^{\mathrm{HC}}+d\sigma _{23,q}^{\mathrm{finite}}+d\sigma _q^{\mathrm{HMF}}.$$
(5)
The label HC indicates hard collinear divergences, which cancel with the universal contributions from hard mass factorization (HMF). The collinear phase space region, which appears for all $`23`$ kinematics, is defined as the region in which the value of the corresponding invariant for the two possibly collinear momenta $`p_i`$ and $`p_j`$ falls below $`(p_i+p_j)^2<\delta _cs`$, where $`\sqrt{s}`$ is the partonic center of mass energy. The squared matrix element is finite in the non-collinear phase space region and can be integrated numerically, creating an implicit logarithmic dependence on the cutoff $`\delta _c`$. Applying the hard mass factorization corrections, we subtract the hard–collinear contributions as a convolution of the leading order matrix element and the appropriate finite splitting function, multiplied by $`\mathrm{log}\delta _c`$ brian . The mismatch of pre-factors leads to an additional explicit dependence of the NLO cross section on the factorization scale $`\mathrm{log}\mu _F`$.

The situation for virtual and real gluon emission in the $`gb`$ initial state is slightly more involved because additional divergences appear due to soft gluon emission. Soft gluon emission is defined by the non-invariant gluon energy constraint $`E_g<\delta _s\sqrt{s}/2`$. The cross section can be written as

$$d\sigma _g=d\sigma _{\mathrm{virt}}^\mathrm{S}+d\sigma _{\mathrm{virt}}^{\mathrm{SC}}+d\sigma _{23}^\mathrm{S}+d\sigma _{23}^{\mathrm{SC}}+d\sigma ^{\mathrm{SMF}}+d\sigma _{23,g}^{\mathrm{HC}}+d\sigma _{23,g}^{\mathrm{finite}}+d\sigma _g^{\mathrm{HMF}},$$
(6)
where the label S means soft, SC soft–collinear, and SMF soft–mass–factorization. The additional soft $`1/ϵ`$ and overlapping soft–collinear $`1/ϵ^2`$ divergences appear in the virtual corrections as well as in the real gluon emission corrections. The divergences cancel among the virtual correction, the real gluon emission correction, and the contributions from mass factorization. We integrate numerically over the hard and non-collinear part of phase space and obtain an implicit dependence on $`\mathrm{log}\delta _s`$ and $`\mathrm{log}\delta _c`$.

No explicit scale dependence occurs in dimensional regularization after the purely soft divergences are canceled between the different $`d\sigma ^\mathrm{S}`$ and $`d\sigma ^{\mathrm{SC}}`$ contributions, and the pre-factors between real and the virtual gluon emission diagrams are matched. All poles in $`d\sigma ^\mathrm{S}`$ and all double poles in $`d\sigma ^{\mathrm{SC}}`$ vanish after the soft divergences are removed, and only single collinear poles $`1/ϵ`$ remain in $`d\sigma ^{\mathrm{SC}}`$. Cancellation of these remaining divergences with the soft mass factorization contribution renders a finite virtual gluon emission matrix element with an additional explicit dependence on $`\mathrm{log}\delta _s`$. This logarithmic dependence cancels against the implicit dependence of the numerically integrated hard non–collinear phase space. An explicit dependence on the factorization scale $`\mathrm{log}\mu _F`$ remains in the universal mass factorization terms. Last, as a slight complication, the same soft–collinear phase space configurations, which include an explicit $`\mathrm{log}\delta _c`$ factor, also lead to an implicit $`\mathrm{log}\delta _s`$ dependence after the numerical phase space integration. This dependence again cancels with the cutoff dependence of the $`23`$ phase space, but it makes the numerical analysis tedious brian .

Both cutoff parameters, $`\delta _s`$ and $`\delta _c`$, must be small in order that the soft and collinear approximation of the universal terms be valid. Physical observables should not depend on the cutoff parameters appreciably. We have checked in detail that the NLO cross section and the distributions approach a two dimensional plateau for sufficiently small values of $`\delta _s`$ and $`\delta _c`$. To define the soft and the collinear regions of phase space consistently and to avoid double counting, it is most convenient to require $`\delta _c\delta _s`$ and then determine the one dimensional plateau for a fixed relation between $`\delta _s`$ and $`\delta _c`$. We show the behavior of the cross section versus the soft and the collinear cutoffs in Fig. 2 at the LHC energy. The cross section develops a wide plateau for $`\delta _c\delta _s`$. Unless noted otherwise we use $`\delta _c=10^5`$ and $`\delta _s=10^3`$ in all numerical analyses. Checking the two dimensional plateau and comparing it with results for the total cross section obtained with a one–cutoff method old , we find that the NLO cross section has a remaining uncertainty of $`0.1\%0.5\%`$ due to the cutoff dependence and the corresponding numerical uncertainty.

### II.2 Scale Dependence

Perturbative QCD calculations introduce an unwelcome dependence on the renormalization scale $`\mu _R`$ and the factorization scale $`\mu _F`$. One of the major motivations to perform NLO calculations is to reduce this scale dependent theoretical uncertainty in predictions of physical observables. As the default renormalization scale, we choose Eq. (2), related to the hard scale $`M`$. We identify the renormalization scales of the strong coupling and the Yukawa coupling. This central renormalization scale choice leads to perturbatively stable predictions for cross sections and branching fractions as functions of $`\alpha _s`$ on\_shell ; scale\_alphas  and as functions of $`y_b`$ scale\_mb . The situation is different for the factorization scale. Two reasons point to a central scale considerably smaller than the hard scale $`M`$, an optimum choice being $`\mu _F=M/5`$.

First, we can estimate the factorization scale from the kinematics of the process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$. The bottom quark factorization scale may be defined as the maximum $`p_{T,b}`$ which is included in the $`22`$ $`gbtH^{}`$ process. For the perturbatively calculated bottom quark density we can go back to the process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ and estimate up to which value $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}`$ the cross section shows the asymptotic behavior $`\sigma _{\overline{b}tH^{}}1/p_{T,b}`$. The hadronic phase space or, more specifically, the gluon luminosity cuts off the asymptotic behavior near $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}M/5`$. This behavior can be understood independently from the form of the matrix element, as long as both incoming partons are either gluons or bottom quarks old ; bottom2 . From basic principles it is not clear if one could use the (factorizing) internal momentum transfer $`Q_b`$ instead of $`p_{T,b}`$ scott . The difference in the maximum value up to which the asymptotic form holds is $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}Q_b^{\mathrm{max}}/2`$, and the plateau in $`p_{T,b}`$ is considerably softened bottom2 . We take this uncertainty into account by varying the factorization scale over a generous range. Our argument works because the bottom parton density is calculated perturbatively, meaning that its features are well defined and understood perturbatively.

Second, in the similar LHC process $`b\overline{b}h`$, the explicit next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) corrections are perturbatively most stable for, and therefore point to, the same small factorization scale robert . Moreover, the NLO corrections to the similar process $`b\overline{b}W^+H^{}`$ are negative for $`\mu _F=M`$ zhu\_hollik , indicating possibly a collinear subtraction much too large.

The variation of the total cross section with the factorization and renormalization scales is under control perturbatively if the two scales $`\mu _R`$ and $`\mu _F`$ are varied independently old . However, there is a very large shift in the total rate if the two scales are varied together $`\mu _R\mu _F`$ and run to very small values $`\mu M/10`$. This behavior suggests the presence of large contributions proportional to $`\mathrm{log}\mu _R\times \mathrm{log}\mu _F`$. In Fig. 3 we show the scale dependence of the different contributions to the leading order and next-to-leading order cross sections for the process $`gbtH^{}`$. The leading order curve (upper-left) behaves as one would expect, namely the cross section increases for small $`\mu _R`$ and for large $`\mu _F`$, independently of each other. This behavior arises from the running strong coupling $`\alpha _s`$ and the bottom parton distribution. In contrast, the running bottom Yukawa coupling is relatively constant for these large scales. The NLO $`gb`$ initiated curve (lower-left) is also easy to understand. The cross section increases with the (bottom quark) factorization scale, but it develops a maximum as a function of $`\mu _R`$ at a physical value of the scale, for values of $`\mu _F`$ not too large. The fraction $`\sigma _{\mathrm{NLO},gb}/\sigma _{\mathrm{LO}}`$ is under control perturbatively over the range of scales, varying at most $`20\%`$. The corrections are largest (and negative) for small $`\mu _R`$, because $`\alpha _s`$ is largest there. Comparison of the NLO and LO results in the OS scheme with those obtained in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme shows that use of the bottom quark pole mass as the Yukawa coupling produces perturbatively less stable rates, giving an unacceptably large leading order cross section. The $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ contribution (lower-right) to the NLO rate has a very different behavior, which dominates the complete NLO rate. The $`gg`$ contribution is regulated through mass factorization, meaning that we compute this process by subtracting out the contribution which is included in the collinear bottom quark splitting. For a central $`\mu _R\mu _R^0`$, the $`gg`$ channel gives a small positive contribution for small $`\mu _F`$ and a small negative contribution for large $`\mu _F`$. The latter indicates that a choice of a large scale overestimates the logarithmic terms, an overestimate then corrected by the explicit NLO diagram. If we do not take into account the difference in size of the gluon and bottom parton luminosities, the $`gg`$ initiated process is suppressed by a factor $`\alpha _s`$ as compared to the $`gb`$ process. The pattern of correcting behavior stays but becomes much steeper if we decrease $`\mu _R`$ and thereby increase $`\alpha _s`$. For a central value $`\mu _F\mu _F^0`$ the $`gg`$ initial state corrections are zero, and for much larger or smaller $`\mu _F`$ their absolute value increases sharply. The $`gg`$ contribution grows for small $`\mu _F`$ and simultaneously small $`\mu _R`$. This effect can be rationalized if we take the position that the choice of very small $`\mu _F`$ and very small $`\mu _R`$ corresponds to a region in parameter space where the $`gb`$ initial state is not dominant perturbatively. The result arises because we choose to ignore the presence of large collinear logarithms up to $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{max}}\mu _{F,b}`$ and at the same time we push $`\alpha _s`$ to large values. The $`K`$ factor grows, indicative that we should use the process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ as the leading process.

### II.3 Total cross section at the LHC

The effects of the NLO corrections on the total cross sections for the process $`gbtH^{}`$ at the LHC are shown in Fig. 4, versus $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ and versus the charged Higgs boson mass $`m_H`$. The solid curve shows the NLO cross section, with the scale variations around the central scale $`\mu /\mu _0=1/44`$ indicated by the thin solid lines in the left panel. The total cross section increases for large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, as expected for the leading behavior $`\sigma _{\mathrm{tot}}\mathrm{tan}^2\beta `$, while the $`K`$ factor is fairly independent of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ old . At leading order we compare the cross section predictions for running bottom quark Yukawa coupling and the pole-mass Yukawa coupling. The pole-mass Yukawa coupling overestimates the total production rate, while the leading order rate with a running bottom quark Yukawa coupling is a more reasonable approximation. With the running bottom quark Yukawa coupling, the NLO result is slightly enhanced by a factor of $`K1.4`$ old . The scale variation suggests a remaining theoretical uncertainty of about $`20\%`$ on the predicted NLO cross section. Both results confirm that the perturbative behavior of the production process $`gbtH^{}`$ is under control.

In the right panel of Fig. 4, the NLO and LO cross sections are indicated by the dashed upper and lower curves, respectively. The size of the NLO corrections is essentially independent of the Higgs boson mass, a uniform enhancement factor of about $`1.4`$. The process $`gbtH^{}`$ itself is well defined over the entire range of Higgs boson masses, as long as the hard scale $`M=m_H+m_t`$ is sufficiently large to motivate the bottom parton picture.

An interesting region is one in which the Higgs boson mass becomes similar to or smaller than the top quark mass, and the decay $`tbH^{}`$ is possible. In Fig. 4 we see that the production of a top quark pair $`ppt\overline{t}+X`$ with subsequent (off-shell) decay $`\overline{t}\overline{b}H^{}`$ becomes the dominant process. For $`m_Hm_t`$ the production cross section is of order $`\alpha _s^2y_{b,t}^2`$ instead of $`\alpha _sy_{b,t}^2`$, and the large gluon luminosity at the LHC is effective in this range of partonic energy. In the following we discuss how these two processes can be combined, to obtain a prediction of the cross section over the entire range of Higgs boson masses.

For small Higgs boson masses, below the threshold $`\overline{t}\overline{b}H^{}`$, the $`t\overline{t}`$ production process with a subsequent decay of the $`\overline{t}`$ dominates the rate for associated production of a charged Higgs boson. It is straightforward to combine the $`t\overline{t}`$ production process and the exclusive production channel $`pp\overline{b}tH^{}+X`$ with a tagged final state bottom-quark jet nir . We compute the process $`pp\overline{b}tH^{}+X`$ with a finite top-quark width, essentially giving us a Breit–Wigner propagator for the intermediate $`\overline{t}`$. Approximate gauge invariance can be achieved in the overall factor scheme overall , in which additional terms $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Gamma }_t/m_t)`$ are traded for a gauge invariant matrix element. Referring to the dotted curves in the right panel of Fig. 4, we see that the process $`\overline{t}\overline{b}H^{}`$ is approximated well by the subset of diagrams with an intermediate $`\overline{t}`$ in the Breit–Wigner approximation, as long as the Higgs boson mass is below the top quark threshold. Above the top quark threshold, the exclusive process $`pp\overline{b}tH^{}+X`$ is dominated by the continuum off-shell diagrams, i.e. the off-shell extension of the $`t\overline{t}`$ production process, including all the diagrams initiated from $`q\overline{q}`$ and $`gg`$. These off-shell diagrams become dominant where the cross section flattens and settles below the $`gb`$ rate, while the Breit–Wigner cross section becomes very small.

For Higgs boson masses above threshold, a bottom quark jet tag is a heavy price to pay, and it is likely a better idea to consider the bottom–inclusive process. The collinear logarithms become large, and to obtain the best possible prediction of the rate we must compute the process $`gbtH^{}`$ old , keeping in mind that even at threshold the hard scale of the process is $`M=350\mathrm{GeV}m_b`$. The difference between the bottom–gluon induced rate and the off-shell curve in Fig. 4 shows this enhancement of the rate due to the resummed logarithmic terms. Strictly speaking, we should take into account that off-shell production also includes the quark–initiated channels $`q\overline{q}\overline{b}tH^{}`$, which do not contribute to the bottom parton density at leading order. However, they contribute only about $`10\%`$ to the total exclusive rate. The matching of the regions of small and large Higgs boson mass in Fig. 4 indicates that a combination is needed of the $`t\overline{t}`$ production process with the process $`gbtH^{}`$. There appears to be no region of Higgs boson masses where the off-shell production process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ is the appropriate perturbative description.

In Fig. 4 we show the different $`t\overline{t}`$ cross sections with a finite bottom quark mass, while we neglect the bottom quark mass for the $`gb`$ channel. The uncertainty induced by this approximation is small, however, since we cannot avoid neglecting $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t/m_t`$ corrections and $`m_b/M\mathrm{\Gamma }_t/M`$.

At leading order the Breit–Wigner approximation of the $`ppt\overline{t}^{}+X`$ process, with subsequent decay of the off-shell $`\overline{t}^{}`$, may be combined without problems with the process $`gbtH^{}`$. We may add the independent event samples for any Higgs boson mass value. However, at NLO and for Higgs boson masses smaller than the top quark mass there is a potential problem of double counting. The $`t\overline{t}^{}`$ production process with a subsequent decay of the $`\overline{t}^{}`$ can be regarded as an $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ correction to the $`gb`$ initiated process, Eq. (4), while it can as well be viewed as (nearly) on-shell $`t\overline{t}`$ production with a subsequent decay $`\overline{t}\overline{b}H^{}`$. To avoid double counting, we subtract the resonant on-shell part of the $`t\overline{t}`$ diagrams from the NLO correction to $`tH^{}`$ production and keep it as part of the $`ppt\overline{t}+X`$ rate. The non-divergent off-shell contribution of the $`\overline{t}^{}`$ propagator is counted toward the NLO $`tH^{}`$ rate. The division into on-shell and off-shell contributions, however, is well defined only in the narrow width approximation, so we neglect terms of order $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t/m_t`$. The ambiguity reflects the unsolved problem of how a long-lived intermediate particle is treated in field theory. Up to finite width corrections we can, just as at leading order, add the rate for $`t\overline{t}`$ production with a Breit–Wigner propagator and the properly subtracted NLO $`gbtH^{}`$ rate to obtain a prediction for any given Higgs boson mass. In Fig. 4 we see that addition of the cross sections is essentially equivalent to a naive matching procedure. It is perhaps unexpected that the corrections from the Breit–Wigner propagator extend to large Higgs boson masses. On the other hand, since there is a $`20\%`$ old  theoretical uncertainty on the NLO cross section for the $`gb`$ induced process, the details of this matching/adding procedure are not important phenomenologically. Instead of including the on-shell production with the Breit–Wigner propagator for Higgs boson mass values above $`300\mathrm{GeV}`$, we could as well have cut it off at $`m_Hm_t+10\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$.

Below the $`\overline{t}\overline{b}H^{}`$ threshold, the Breit–Wigner description is valid, with higher order contributions included in the cross section for $`ppt\overline{t}+X`$ Berger:1995xz ; ttbar . Off-shell effects have little impact there. Above threshold these off-shell effects have a considerable impact relative to the Breit–Wigner description, but the $`gbtH^{}`$ cross section is dominant. After the on-shell contributions are subtracted from the NLO rate for $`gbtH^{}`$, we can match the two results simply by adding them, without any problem of double counting.

It is useful at this point to compare our final predictions with those published in Ref. zhu . For $`m_H=250`$ GeV and $`m_t=175`$ GeV, and for the same value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =30`$, our predicted $`K`$ factor is $`1.4`$ versus about $`1.6`$ in Ref.zhu . However, these numbers should not be compared directly since the factorization and the renormalization scales are different in the two calculations. In addition, there are small differences in the values of parameters such as the NLO $`m_b`$, $`\alpha _s`$ and the choices of cutoffs. If we use exactly the same parameters, cutoff choices, renormalization schemes, and most importantly the same factorization and renormalization scales, our result is $`5`$% larger when compared to that of Ref. zhu . We attribute this $`5`$% difference to uncertainty in the numerical integration. In the two-cutoff phase space method, the final NLO cross section is the difference of two large quantities. The numerical uncertainty of either of the these integrations is less than $`1\%`$, but an uncertainty of $`5\%`$ can develop in the difference.

There are two masses in the matrix elements that must be renormalized, $`m_b`$ and $`m_t`$. The top mass $`m_t`$ enters both as an external quark mass and in the Yukawa coupling. The bottom mass $`m_b`$ appears only in the Yukawa coupling, since we have set the external bottom quark mass to zero. We consistently use the on-shell (OS) scheme for the external top quark mass and we use the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme for the top and bottom quark masses in the Yukawa couplings. To understand the effect of a different renormalization scheme for top quark mass in the Yukawa coupling, we perform our calculation in both schemes. The counter terms for the top quark mass are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta m_t^{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}}{m_t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{4\pi }}C_F(4\pi )^ϵ\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+ϵ){\displaystyle \frac{3}{ϵ_{UV}}},`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta m_t^{OS}}{m_t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{4\pi }}C_F\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \mu ^2}{m_t^2}}\right)^ϵ\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+ϵ)\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{ϵ_{UV}}}+4\right),`$ (8)
for the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ and the OS scheme respectively. Changing from one scheme to another can induce about $`12`$% difference in the NLO cross section relative to the LO Born cross section.

We judge it physically more attractive to use the OS scheme for the external top quark mass since the top quark mass reconstructed in experiments is the pole mass. Nevertheless, it is perhaps best to admit that the difference in scheme choice is tantamount to a difference at the next order in $`\alpha _s`$ and thus should be viewed as a theoretical systematic uncertainty at the order of perturbation theory in which we are working.

### II.4 Production at the Tevatron

The successful matching of the Breit–Wigner approximation and the process $`gbtH^{}`$ does not apply readily at the Tevatron. In Fig. 5 we observe that the LO process $`gbtH^{}`$ underestimates the cross section compared to $`\overline{b}tH^{}`$ production nir . At the Tevatron the gluon luminosity is not dominant in the relevant region of partonic fractional momentum $`x`$. The gluon initial state contributes only about $`10\%`$ to the total $`p\overline{p}\overline{b}tH^{}+X`$ rate. Because initial state gluons are the dominant source of the bottom partons, we expect the leading order $`gb`$ rate to be far smaller than the true rate. The leading-order $`23`$ processes contribute to the NLO $`gb`$ process, and perturbation theory for the $`gb`$ process is not well defined, in the sense that the NLO corrections are large. The difference between the leading order $`gb`$ rate and the off-shell $`\overline{b}tH^{}`$ production rate is slightly less than a factor 10 because the $`gb`$ rate is still enhanced by the resummation of large logarithmic terms in the bottom parton picture. We limit ourselves to LHC results for most of the rest of this paper.

The NLO inclusive $`tH^{}`$ rate consistently includes the whole set of quark initiated processes, Eq. (4). Because these quark processes are dominant at Tevatron energies, the $`K`$ factor for the $`gb`$ process can be as large as 5 for $`m_H175\mathrm{GeV}`$. The NLO inclusive rate matches the exclusive rate from $`p\overline{p}\overline{t}^{}t+X`$; $`\overline{t}^{}\overline{b}H^{}`$ fairly well, particularly in view of possible remaining differences between these two channels. The cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{off}\mathrm{shell}}`$ for $`p\overline{p}\overline{t}^{}t+X`$ is calcualted at leading order and evaluated with leading order running couplings and parton densities, while the quark-initiated contributions to the NLO inclusive rates $`\sigma _{\mathrm{incl},\mathrm{NLO}}`$ are evaluated with NLO quantities. Moreover, the collinear divergences in the exclusive rate are regulated by a physical bottom quark mass, while the NLO inclusive rate neglects the bottom quark mass and is regulated by mass factorization, i.e. by subtraction of the divergent contributions to avoid double counting with the NLO evolution of the parton densities.

Just as for the LHC we see that the Breit–Wigner approximation and the complete off-shell matrix element evaluation agree very well up to $`m_Hm_t`$. Above threshold the LO $`gb`$ rate is significantly smaller than the complete off-shell rate, but the NLO inclusive rate matches the exclusive rate well. The visible effect which the Breit–Wigner contribution has on the matched/added sum of the cross sections may be unexpected, but we keep in mind the substantial theoretical uncertainty on the NLO prediction. The NLO contribution from the $`q\overline{q}\overline{b}tH^{}`$ production process is larger than the LO $`gb`$ induced rate. The formally NLO $`gb`$ induced rate enters with a much wider band of uncertainty than the $`20\%`$ we quote for the perturbatively well behaved LHC process. This wider band covers different schemes for phasing out the Breit–Wigner contribution toward large Higgs boson masses. In Fig. 5 we cut off the Breit–Wigner cross sections for Higgs boson masses between $`200\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`250\mathrm{GeV}`$, i.e. roughly 20 top quark widths above threshold.

Although we obtain a predicted cross section at the Tevatron for the entire range of $`m_H`$, we emphasize that the matching of the Breit–Wigner production process and $`gb`$ fusion works only if we take into account the NLO corrections to the $`gb`$ channel. At the LHC the same matching of the two approaches at threshold makes sense even for the leading order $`gbtH^{}`$ rate. Because the bottom parton picture is perturbatively stable at the LHC energy, the prediction of the charged Higgs boson production rate suffers from smaller theoretical uncertainty.

## III Kinematic distributions

The bottom parton picture underlies the calculation of the production cross section. As summarized above, the bottom parton description provides an appropriate way to compute the total cross section for charged Higgs boson production if an appropriate bottom quark factorization scale is used. We establish three results in extending our analysis to the kinematic distributions. The normalized distributions of sufficiently inclusive variables do not change significantly from a LO to a NLO treatment of the process $`gbtH^{}`$. Second, the distributions as well as the total rate do not have a strong scale dependence. In particular, checking the limit $`\mu _Fm_b`$, we verify that the bottom parton picture does not have much impact on the shape of the kinematic distributions of the heavy final-state particles. Finally, we test the approximation of vanishing bottom quark mass in the phase space and the matrix elements.

The first statement is easy to confirm. We show the rapidity, the transverse momentum, and the invariant mass distributions for the heavy final-state particles in Fig. 6. Although the additional bottom quark jet in the final state absorbs part of the momentum from the incoming partons, the NLO transverse momentum distributions are minimally harder. The extra NLO purely quark-initiated production process has a considerably harder $`p_T`$ spectrum, but it contributes only $`10\%`$ to the NLO rate (see also the quark induced contribution in the left panel of Fig. 7). For single particle spectra at the LHC, we conclude that the shift in the final state distributions from LO to NLO is smaller than the typical scale uncertainty of $`20\%`$ on the NLO rate. Similar behavior is found, for example, in the production of heavy supersymmetric particles at NLO on\_shell ; Berger:1999mc .

### III.1 Zero transverse momentum approximation

The transverse momentum and the rapidity distributions of the heavy final-state particles are depicted in Fig. 6. The choice of the bottom quark factorization scale $`\mu _F=M/5`$ has been shown to be a part of a consistent bottom parton picture for this class of processes at the LHC bottom2 ; old ; scott . It remains to be checked whether the collinear approximation for the gluon splitting into a bottom parton is appropriate for the distributions of the final state particles.

We make use of the method described in Sec. II.2 to test the bottom parton approach and in particular the approximation of negligible transverse momentum of the incoming bottom parton. The bottom parton density vanishes if the bottom quark factorization scale approaches the bottom quark mass $`\mu _{F,b}m_b`$. For consistency reasons we use the same factorization scale for all partons, but neither the gluon density nor the light quark densities change dramatically as $`\mu _Fm_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. In this limit the NLO $`gb`$ induced cross section at the LHC is dominated by the process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$. Even though the final-state bottom quark is massless in the calculation, the corresponding rate is finite and well defined for any factorization scale $`\mu _F>m_b`$. All divergences in the $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ process, regulated originally by a bottom quark mass, are absorbed into the definition of the NLO parton densities. As described in Sec. II.2, when the bottom quark factorization scale takes the limit $`\mu _{F,b}m_b`$ the physical picture shifts from the resummed cross section, including a large logarithmic term $`\mathrm{log}p_{T,b}/m_b`$, to the $`\overline{b}tH^{}`$ situation in which the large logarithmic contribution could be removed, for example, by a detector cut $`p_{T,b}^{\mathrm{min}}`$. We show the difference between the NLO distributions with the central factorization scale $`\mu _F=M/5`$ and the small scale limit in Fig. 6. The scales we use are $`\mu _F=10,20\mathrm{GeV}`$. In principle, we could as well try $`\mu _F=5\mathrm{GeV}`$, for which the calculated bottom quark density is well defined, but the parton densities of gluons and light quarks are poorly constrained. We checked that we would then see all the features described below for scales down to $`10\mathrm{GeV}`$, except that their effect on the cross sections would be numerically more pronounced.

We see in Fig. 6 that the final-state top quark and Higgs boson momentum distributions become somewhat harder when we increase the contributions from the $`23`$ matrix elements, going to $`\mu _F=20\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`\mu _F=10\mathrm{GeV}`$. The same behavior is seen in the invariant mass of the top quark and the Higgs boson pair, $`m_{tH}`$, shown in Fig. 6. To explore this feature we present a normalized distribution of the $`m_{tH}`$ invariant mass, in which we rescale the gluon distribution function for the central choice $`\mu _F=M/5`$ by a factor $`P_g(\mu _F,x_{\mathrm{PDF}})^2/P_g(M/5,x_{\mathrm{PDF}})^2`$, to estimate the effect of the parton densities. Because most of the cross section arises from production near threshold, we can approximate $`x_{\mathrm{PDF}}=m_{tH}/E_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ with $`E_{\mathrm{coll}}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$. The physics motivation of this cross check is that the gluon densities become slightly harder for smaller scales, and we want to understand whether the hardening of the $`m_{tH}`$ distribution arises from the shift from the bottom parton picture to the gluon fusion picture or if it is due to an overall hardening of the gluon parton spectrum. In Fig. 6 we observe that scaling the usual NLO distribution with the $`x`$ dependence of the gluon parton density reproduces the hardening of the top quark and Higgs boson spectra. Concluding this argument, we find a slight shift in the spectrum at smaller factorization scales, but this shift is induced by the shape of the gluon parton density. The two sets of distributions in the bottom row of Fig. 6 show that there appears to be no problem with the bottom parton approximation for sufficiently inclusive distributions of the heavy final state particles at the LHC. While there is a large logarithmic term $`\mathrm{log}p_{T,b}/m_b`$ present in the $`\overline{b}tH^{}`$ production rate, no additional perturbative pitfalls appear in the $`gb`$ process after the logarithmic terms are resummed. All additional dependence on the (neglected) transverse momentum of the final-state bottom jet is effectively power suppressed.

### III.2 Zero bottom quark mass approximation

We have compared the $`gb`$ induced process with the process $`gg\overline{b}tH^{}`$ without a finite bottom quark mass in the phase space or in the matrix element. For the kinematic distributions of the bottom quarks this approximation is not obviously good. In our NLO approach the divergences in the $`p_{T,b}`$ spectrum are compensated by a negative infinity at $`p_{T,b}=0`$, i.e. in the $`22`$ kinematic limit. This distribution is not physical, and all-orders soft gluon resummation should be taken into account resum  to obtain a physical spectrum with a peak at some small value of $`p_{T,b}`$. With the bottom quark mass as a regulator, the $`p_{T,b}`$ spectrum peaks near $`m_b`$ old . However, when the $`gb`$ process is used, we are implicitly not interested in observing the final bottom-quark jet and in its distributions; rather, we are interested in the distributions of the heavy final state particles. In Fig. 7 we show the normalized transverse momentum distribution of the top quark for the $`gb`$ process at NLO, and for the $`23`$ process, with two different cutoffs: one with the physical bottom quark mass and the other with a smaller mathematical cutoff (we use $`1/10`$ of the bottom quark pole mass). We observe that the $`gb`$ calculation agrees with the $`23`$ matrix element approach with the physical bottom quark mass. The curve with a smaller cutoff instead of the bottom quark mass agrees perhaps too well with the NLO process in which the bottom quark mass is neglected. The distribution in the invariant mass of the $`tH^{}`$ final state confirms this level of agreement. The dependence on the bottom quark mass seems to be power suppressed, and the approximation of zero bottom quark mass is justified.

There are limitations of our argument for charged Higgs boson production at the Tevatron. The $`23`$ rate with a finite bottom quark mass, induced by incoming quarks, shows considerably harder momenta of final-state top quarks. While the total cross section is predicted correctly in the bottom parton picture, this effect might mean that the kinematic distributions require more careful study at Tevatron energies. The effect is not related to the approximation of zero bottom quark mass. Instead, it probes the perturbative link between the contribution of gluon and quark initiated diagrams in the $`23`$ production processes and the bottom parton description.

Finally, we remark that the total cross section and the inclusive distributions of the final state particles are correctly predicted in the bottom parton picture. Neither the small transverse momentum approximation nor the small bottom quark mass approximation in the bottom parton picture has a visible effect on the transverse momentum, the rapidity, and the invariant mass distributions of the final state top quark and Higgs boson. Shifts induced by the massless bottom parton approximation are washed out once detector resolution is taken into account. For the processes under consideration, the contribution from the $`q\overline{q}`$ initial states is less important at the LHC than at the Tevatron. The light-quark induced subprocesses show harder transverse momentum spectra, a difference that should be considered for predictions at Tevatron energies.

### III.3 Final state correlations

The fully differential nature of the two–cutoff method enables us to place a kinematic cut on one final state particle and to study the distribution in the momentum of other particles in the final state. It allows us to examine any correlation observable among the final state particles which does not spoil the cancellation of soft and (initial state) collinear divergences. For reasons of acceptance and/or to improve signal purity with respect to backgrounds, it may be helpful to make final-state cuts that act in similar fashion to a cut on the transverse momentum of the top-quark. If the charged Higgs boson decays to a $`\tau `$-lepton jet, a simple transverse momentum cut on a lepton from the top quark decay could be an example. We examine in this section how such a selection may affect the expected transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson transverse momentum distribution is crucial because it determines the boost of the Higgs boson decay products. If these products include bottom-quark or $`\tau `$-lepton jets, their transverse momentum distributions determine the tagging efficiencies.

The topology of the final state and the correlation in momentum between the top-quark and the Higgs boson change once NLO corrections are included. Instead of a back-to-back pair of heavy states at leading order, the NLO topology includes three final-state particles sharing the total transverse momentum. In Fig. 8, we show the $`p_{T,H}`$ distributions after the cuts $`p_{T,t}>50\mathrm{GeV}`$ or $`p_{T,t}>100\mathrm{GeV}`$. At LO, a cut on $`p_{T,t}`$ indeed eliminates values of $`p_{T,H}`$ below this cut. The LO distribution $`d\sigma /dp_{T,H}`$ in the range $`p_{T,H}>100\mathrm{GeV}`$ is identical for the two cases shown: $`p_{T,t}^{\mathrm{min}}=50\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`p_{T,t}^{\mathrm{min}}=100\mathrm{GeV}`$. At NLO, the figure shows that the effects of cuts on the momentum of one final state particle extend over a significant range in the momentum of another final state particle. Owing to the presence of the final state jet, the NLO transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs boson extends all the way to zero, as shown in Fig. 8. The impact of the $`p_{T,t}`$ cut on the NLO distributions is evident well above $`p_{T,H}=p_{T,t}^{\mathrm{min}}`$, and the distributions do not coincide until $`p_{T,H}>200\mathrm{GeV}`$. The ratio of the NLO and LO distributions cannot be represented by a simple correction (or “$`K`$”) factor. This factor would be infinite for values of $`p_{T,H}`$ less than the value of the cut on $`p_{T,t}`$, less than unity in a small interval where $`p_{t,H}`$ is just above the cut, and uniformly greater than unity for $`p_{T,H}>1.5p_{T,t}^{\mathrm{min}}`$.

In contrast to the differences seen in Fig. 8, the effect of a $`p_{T,t}`$ cut on the Higgs boson rapidity distribution is trivial: the NLO rapidity distributions of the Higgs boson and the top-quark are reduced by an approximately uniform factor.

The distribution in $`p_{T,H}`$ is well defined at NLO. The soft and the initial-state collinear divergences appear with Born–type kinematics, just like the explicit infrared poles. However, we expect strong cancellations between large NLO negative virtual contributions and positive NLO real emission contributions at the LO threshold. Numerical problems can arise once these cancellations yield a cross section at threshold that is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the contributing parts. Motivated by evidence of instability in the threshold region $`p_{T,H}=p_{T,t}^{\mathrm{cut}}`$ if we use the values of $`\delta _s`$ and $`\delta _c`$ chosen earlier, we select cutoff values $`\delta _s=10^2`$ and $`\delta _c=2\times 10^4`$ to obtain the results shown in Fig. 8. These relatively large values of the cutoffs remain in the safe region for the total cross section, as shown in Fig. 2. Moreover, we use fairly wide bins, to be less sensitive to numerical cancellations in the threshold region. The behavior of the curves in Fig. 8 near threshold indicates a some remaining uncertainty, so the $`p_{T,H}`$ distributions should be taken with reservation at threshold. They should be reliable one bin or more from threshold in each direction.

Another distribution of interest is the vector sum of the transverse momenta of the top quark and the Higgs boson ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T=|(\stackrel{}{p}_{T,t}+\stackrel{}{p}_{T,H})|`$) shown in the left panel of Fig. 9. The LO distribution is a single peak at $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T=0`$ since the top quark and the Higgs boson balance in transverse momentum at this order. At NLO, the observable $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T`$ is the transverse momentum of the third jet in the final state. The shape of the distribution depends only mildly on the Higgs boson mass. The NLO distribution in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T`$ shows a marked divergence as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T0`$. This divergence reflects a limitation of our fixed-order calculation and points to the eventual need for all-orders resummation of the effects of soft-gluon radiation, as discussed and implemented for other processes resum .

The right panel of Fig. 9 displays the two-dimensional correlation between $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =|\varphi _t\varphi _H|`$ for the sum of all $`23`$ contributions to the cross section. Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ is the difference between the azimuthal angles of the Higgs boson and the top quark. At LO it is fixed to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =\pi `$, but for the $`23`$ processes the distribution extends to all $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$, again a manifestation of the fact that an additional parton in the final state contributes to the transverse momentum balance. It is interesting to see that the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T`$ distribution for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi \pi `$, i.e. for a topology different from LO, develops a maximum for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T50\mathrm{GeV}`$ and drops to zero for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T0`$. This feature and the corresponding behavior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }p_T0`$ reflect the fact that the (resummable) divergence is limited to the LO topology.

## IV Supersymmetric contributions

Supersymmetric diagrams contribute to the production rate for $`gbtH^{}`$ at the same level as the NLO QCD contributions ($`\alpha _s^2y_{b,t}^2`$), These diagrams are virtual gluon exchange diagrams, where the gluons and quarks are replaced by their supersymmetric partners, gluinos and squarks. A feature of squarks is the mixing between the supersymmetric partners of the left-handed and the right-handed quarks. The $`2\times 2`$ bottom-squark mass matrix has an off-diagonal entry $`m_b(A_b\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta )`$, and the top-squark mass matrix has an entry $`m_t(A_t\mu /\mathrm{tan}\beta )`$. Here $`\mu `$ is the Higgsino mass parameter which links the two Higgs doublets in the Lagrangian, and $`A_i`$ is the trilinear squark-squark-Higgs boson coupling parameter. The off–diagonal entry in the matrix element is proportional to the mass of the standard model partner, and it is usually neglected for the first and second generations. For large values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ bottom squark mixing can become larger than top squark mixing.

In the limit of large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, the leading supersymmetric contributions are not loop diagrams, but renormalization terms delta\_mb . This point becomes evident if we compute the corrections to the $`btH^{}`$ vertex in the limit of vanishing bottom quark mass, but finite bottom quark Yukawa coupling. This approach is justified from a formal point of view because the connection between the mass and the Yukawa coupling is a property of electroweak symmetry-breaking and not protected once the symmetry is broken. Disassociation of the mass and the Yukawa coupling becomes apparent in a type-II two-Higgs-doublet model like the MSSM. Because the bottom quark Yukawa coupling always appears as $`m_b\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, the relationship between the mass and the Yukawa coupling is not fixed. If we compute the renormalization of the $`tbH^{}`$ vertex with a zero external bottom quark mass, bottom squark mixing diagrams lead to contributions which look like mass renormalization terms, i.e. terms which create a finite bottom quark mass in the external leg. However, this interpretation cannot be correct, since mass renormalization has to be multiplicative. Instead, we see that these renormalization factors describe a misalignment of the bottom quark Yukawa coupling and the bottom quark mass, which appears for zero bottom quark mass as well as for finite values. In complete analogy to a mass renormalization, these coupling renormalization diagrams can be resummed to all orders and lead to a correction delta\_mb\_resum :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{m_b\mathrm{tan}\beta }{v}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_b\mathrm{tan}\beta }{v}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\mathrm{\Delta }_b}}`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\theta _b)}{m_b}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{4\pi }}C_Fm_{\stackrel{~}{g}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i\pi ^2}}\left[B(0,m_{\stackrel{~}{b},2},m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})B(0,m_{\stackrel{~}{b},1},m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{2\pi }}C_Fm_{\stackrel{~}{g}}\left(A_b+\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta \right)I(m_{\stackrel{~}{b},1},m_{\stackrel{~}{b},2},m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})`$
$`I(a,b,c)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(a^2b^2)(b^2c^2)(c^2a^2)}}\left[a^2b^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{b^2}}+b^2c^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{c^2}}+c^2a^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{c^2}{a^2}}\right].`$ (9)
The function $`B(p^2,m_1,m_2)`$ is the usual scalar two–point function; $`C_F=4/3`$ is the Casimir factor in the fundamental representation of $`SU(3)`$. There are similar additional terms proportional to the strong coupling or to the top quark Yukawa coupling, but Eq. (9) is the leading contribution for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$.

Since these $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections are the leading $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$-enhanced supersymmetric contributions to the production cross section, and since the charged Higgs boson search is most promising at $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 15`$, we might speculate that these corrections to the $`gbtH^{}`$ production rate are sufficient. Equation (9) shows that the shift in the Yukawa coupling can have large effects sola  provided that $`\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is large (preferably negative), the gluino mass is large, and bottom-squark masses are not too large. In this limit the percentage corrections are approximately $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta /m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$. The non-$`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$-type supersymmetric corrections are negligible compared, for example, to the remaining NLO scale variation.

The supersymmetric contributions to the charged Higgs boson production cross sections are shown in Table 1 for the “Snowmass points and slopes” (SPS) sps  parameters. The contributions are split into the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections, as defined in Eq. (9), and the remaining supersymmetric diagrams. We present the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ contributions in the NLO version $`12\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ as well as after resummation, $`1/(1+\mathrm{\Delta }_b)^2`$. The ratios of the SUSY corrections to the NLO QCD cross sections are given in the last three columns. The negative sign of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ contributions is fixed by the sign of $`\mu `$. The sign of $`\mu `$ is a free parameter, linked to SUSY contributions to the transition rate $`bs\gamma `$. In this process the measured rate is consistent with the standard model prediction. There are additional charged Higgs boson and chargino induced contributions in the MSSM. For $`\mu >0`$ they enter with opposite signs and therefore tend to cancel numerically, while for $`\mu <0`$, in particular in the mSUGRA supersymmetry breaking scheme, the parameter space is closely constrained. Therefore, all SPS points are chosen with positive sign of $`\mu `$.

In Table 1 we observe that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections are dominant for all points with $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 15`$, particularly for the two points with $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =30,50`$. The leading contribution for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is described correctly by the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections. At maximum, all supersymmetric corrections are of the order of the remaining scale variation and our estimate of the theoretical uncertainty of $`20\%`$, as long as $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 30`$. This modest correction is not necessarily true for the entire supersymmetric parameter space, and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections can be much larger sola . However, the small correction reflects the ansatz used in supersymmetry breaking. None of the scenarios in Table 1 is designed to produce a large splitting in the supersymmetric mass parameters at the weak scale or a large value of $`|\mu |`$, which would favor large $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$-type corrections. In general, large values of $`|\mu |`$ are a challenge in high-scale motivated models. For fine-tuning reasons these models usually produce $`|\mu |`$ of order the weak scale, to avoid large cancellations of different renormalization group contributions to the value of $`m_Z`$. Even in the focus-point focus  inspired SPS2 the contribution to weak–scale parameters that are proportional to $`m_0`$ cancels in itself, decoupling the value of $`m_0`$ from the leading renormalization group running. All other parameters remain at typical weak-scale values. In all three SUSY breaking scenarios considered, the large gluino mass, linked to the relative dominance of the corresponding beta function $`\beta _3`$, is the reason the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ correction is not negligible.

In Fig. 10 we show that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ contributions can become large once we depart from the unification scenarios. Starting from the mSUGRA motivated points SPS4 and SPS5, listed in Table 1, we vary $`\mu `$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, leaving all other masses and parameters invariant. As expected, the non-resummed $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections become arbitrarily large for large values of $`|\mu |`$, and the resummed $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ correction can become arbitrarily large for some negative values of $`\mu `$, both limited only perturbatively and ultimately by unitarity of the enhanced bottom quark Yukawa coupling. The sign of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ correction is fixed by the sign of $`\mu `$, and the remaining SUSY contributions are small. For comparison, we also show the NLO cross sections without SUSY contributions included, the typical case for a two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM). These curves are labeled $`\sigma _{2\mathrm{H}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{M}}`$. The NLO QCD cross section does not depend on the SUSY parameter $`\mu `$, but it increases as $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ gets large, as expected. In Fig. 11 we show the same effect, starting from the scenarios A and C in Ref. sola . Because the value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =50`$ is large, the non–$`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections are completely negligible, while the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections can become arbitrarily large. The difference in the size of the corrections in the two panels of Fig. 11 can be understood from Eq. (9) in the limit $`ab`$ for the bottom squark masses and either $`ca,b`$ or $`ca,b`$. In both cases the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections are suppressed by the heaviest mass in the system, i.e. the gluino mass, but the pre-factor is larger if all masses involved are of the same order.

## V Conclusions

We evaluate the inclusive and differential cross sections for the associated production of a top quark along with a charged Higgs boson at Tevatron and LHC energies to next-to-leading order in QCD and in supersymmetric QCD.

Using the two–cutoff scheme to treat the soft and collinear singularities, we find stable results for total and differential cross sections over large ranges of the cutoff parameters as well as of the factorization and renormalization scales. While the QCD corrections to the total rate are sizable at the LHC, $`K1.4`$ old , the shifts in the normalized kinematic distributions of the heavy final state top quark and Higgs boson are negligible. The scale dependence gives us a reasonable estimate of about $`20\%`$ on the remaining theoretical uncertainty.

In the regime where $`m_H<m_t`$, we compute the NLO cross section by subtracting the intermediate on-shell divergences in the narrow width approximation. This procedure allows us to match the NLO cross section for the process $`gbtH^{}`$ with the contributions from $`ggt\overline{t}^{}`$ with a subsequent decay $`\overline{t}^{}\overline{b}H^{}`$, simply by adding the rates. This method yields a prediction for the cross section for associated charged Higgs boson production over the entire range of Higgs boson.

At the Tevatron, charged Higgs boson production is likely to be observed only for small masses of the Higgs boson. In this regime we show the validity of the Breit–Wigner approximation in the $`t\overline{t}`$ production process. We can add the off-shell production rate at NLO.

Examining the NLO momentum distributions for inclusive charged Higgs boson production, we show the validity of the bottom parton description beyond the total rate. Neither the collinear phase space approximation nor the approximation of zero bottom quark mass has a visible impact on the kinematic distributions of the heavy final state particles.

The fully differential nature of the two–cutoff method enables us to place a kinematic cut on one final state particle and study the distribution in momentum of the other particles. It allows us also to examine momentum correlations among the final state particles.

We explore the effects of virtual supersymmetric particles in NLO loop diagrams and find that the universal $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ corrections to the Yukawa coupling can be sizable. In the two Higgs doublet model, the remaining explicit loop contributions to the NLO rate are below the level of the scale uncertainty.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Brian Harris for his assistance with the two–cutoff method and Shouhua Zhu for providing comparisons between our results and those in Ref. zhu . We are grateful for helpful discussions with Carlos Wagner and John Campbell. J.J. acknowledges helpful conversations with Jungil Lee. T.P. wants to thank Sasha Nikitenko for his support and for pointing out questions from the experimental community. Moreover, T.P. wishes to thank Thomas Teubner and Sakis Dedes for helpful discussions, and last but not least the IPPP in Durham for their kind hospitality during the final stage of this paper. The research of E. L. B. and J. J. in the High Energy Physics Division at Argonne National Laboratory is supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Division of High Energy Physics, under Contract W-31-109-ENG-38. T.H. is supported in part by the DOE under grant DE-FG02-95ER40896, and in part by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.