Simulating b-associated production of Z and Higgs bosons with the Sherpa event generator

Abstract

We compare four- and five-flavor scheme predictions for b-associated production of Z and Higgs bosons. The results are obtained with SHERPA' s MC@NLO implementation for the four- flavor scheme, treating the b's as massive, and with multijet merging at leading and next-to-leading order for the five-flavor schemes. Comparison with data for Z + b((b) over bar) production at the 7 TeV LHC exhibits strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches and is used to validate predictions for b-associated Higgs-boson production at the 13 TeV Run II.