On the non-factorizable corrections to Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion

Abstract: We discuss the non-factorizable corrections to Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion at the Large Hadron Collider. Such corrections depend on the finite part of the two-loop virtual amplitude $q \, Q \rightarrow q^\prime \, Q^\prime + H$ which, up to now, has only been computed in the eikonal approximation. We combine this contribution with real-virtual and double-real non-factorizable QCD corrections and study their impact on the various observables in weak boson fusion. We find that the non-factorizable corrections are strongly dominated by the two-loop virtual contributions, while all other contributions play a very minor role. This striking imbalance between real and virtual contributions is caused by a process-specific kinematic suppression of the former and a particular enhancement of the virtual corrections related to a Glauber phase.