We present a computation of next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson in association with a $W$ boson at the LHC followed by the decay of the Higgs boson to a $b\overline{b}$ pair. At variance with previous NNLO QCD studies of the same process, we treat $b$ quarks as massive. An important advantage of working with massive $b$ quarks is that it makes the use of flavor jet algorithms unnecessary and allows us to employ conventional jet algorithms to define $b$ jets. We compare NNLO QCD descriptions of the associated $WH(b\overline{b})$ production with massive and massless $b$ quarks and also contrast them with the results provided by parton showers. We find $\mathcal{O}(5\%)$ differences in fiducial cross sections computed with massless and massive $b$ quarks. We also observe that much larger differences between massless and massive results, as well as between fixed-order and parton-shower results, can arise in selected kinematic distributions.

• Received 30 March 2020
• Accepted 1 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.101.114012

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Published by the American Physical Society