Associated production of a weak gauge boson and one or two bottom quarks at hadron colliders
Prof. Dr. Doreen Wackeroth (University at Buffalo)

One of the main goals of high-energy collider experiments is the elucidation of the mechanism of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) as well as the exploration of energy scales beyond the weak scale, where physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) is expected. The hadronic production of a weak gauge boson in association with one or two bottom quarks plays a crucial role in some of the current studies of EWSB and BSM physics at the Fermilab Tevatron p anti-p collider. These processes represent the major irreducible backgrounds to the main search modes for a light SM-like Higgs boson at the Tevatron, i.e. WH and ZH with the Higgs decaying in a bottom-quark pair. Moreover, Wb anti-b production accounts for one of the most important backgrounds to single-top production, which tests the fundamental structure of the Wtb vertex. I will present the calculation of Zb anti-b and W boson production in association with one or two bottom quarks at next-leading-order QCD with full bottom quark mass dependence. Present experimental analyses use NLO predictions provided by the MCFM package calculated in the zero-bottom quark mass approximation. I will discuss the results of a comparison of MCFM and our calculation with special emphasis on the bottom mass effects.