Gluon-Induced Weak Boson Fusion

The gluon-gluon induced terms for Higgs production through weak boson fusion (WBF) are computed. Formally, these are of NNLO in the strong coupling constant. This is the lowest order at which non-zero color exchange occurs between the scattering quarks, leading to a color field and thus additional hadronic activity between the outgoing jets. Using a minimal set of cuts, the numerical impact of these terms is at the percent level with respect to the NLO rate for weak boson fusion. Applying the so-called WBF cuts leads to an even stronger suppression, so that we do not expect a significant deterioration of the WFB signal by these color exchange effects.