Effective field theory for Higgs boson plus jet production

We use an effective field theory which includes all possible gluon-Higgs dimension-5 and dimension-7 operators to study Higgs boson plus jet production in next-to-leading order QCD. The effective field theory sheds light on the effect of a finite top quark mass as well as any beyond-the-Standard-Model modifications of Higgs-gluon effective couplings. In the gluon channel, the accuracy of the heavy-top approximation for differential distributions arises from the noninterference between the helicity amplitudes of the G³h and G²h operators in the mₕ<pT limit at lowest order. One dimension-7 operator involving quark bilinears, however, contributes significantly at high pT and potentially offers a channel for seeing beyond-the-Standard-Model effects. One-loop renormalization of these operators is determined, allowing resummation of large logarithms via renormalization group running. Next-to-leading-order numerical results at the LHC are presented, which include O(1/mₜ²) contributions in the Standard Model limit.