Abstract
Top-quark pair production in association with two b-jets is computed at next-to-leading order QCD precision, including effects of the b-quark mass, and matched to a \( t\overline{t} \)+jets simulation in a variable flavor number scheme. The Monte Carlo realization of this method, called fusing, consistently embeds the four-flavor calculation in a particle-level event generator. As a first phenomenological application, we present observables relevant to the data-driven estimation of irreducible backgrounds to \( t\overline{t}H \)-production.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Johannes Krause and Chris Pollard for collaboration in the early stages of this project, and in particular for contributing the initial version of the Rivet analysis routine [105]. We thank Stefano Pozzorini for comments and suggestions on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE–AC02–07CH11359. This research used the Fermilab Wilson Institutional Cluster for code development, testing and validation. We are grateful to James Simone for his support.
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Ferencz, L., Höche, S., Katzy, J. et al. \( t\overline{t}b\overline{b} \) at NLO precision in a variable flavor number scheme. J. High Energ. Phys. 2024, 26 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2024)026
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2024)026