Next-to-soft threshold effects on Higgs boson production via bottom quark annihilation

We examine the behavior of singular leading and subleading logarithms, commonly referred to as the soft-virtual (SV) and next-to-soft-virtual (NSV) terms, in the production of the Higgs boson via the bottom quark annihilation channel. We derive analytic expressions at the SV + NSV resummed level, up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N3LL) accuracy in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD), applicable to both the inclusive production cross section and rapidity distribution. This has been achieved using an existing resummation formalism based on factorization and renormalization group (RG) invariance. A phenomenological analysis of our resummed results is performed for the 13 TeV Large Hadron Collider. Furthermore, we present the SV coefficients at the fourth order in the strong coupling and explore the impact of next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N4LL) resummation on the total cross section. Published by the American Physical Society 2025