Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion at next-to-leading order

The weak boson fusion process for neutral Higgs boson production is investigated with particular attention to the accuracy with which the Higgs boson coupling to weak bosons can be determined at CERN Large Hadron Collider energies in final states that contain a Higgs boson plus at least two jets. Using fully differential perturbative matrix elements for the weak boson fusion signal process and for the QCD background processes, we generate events in which a Higgs boson is produced along with two jets that carry large transverse momentum. The effectiveness of different prescriptions to enhance the signal-to background ratio is studied, and the expected signal purities are calculated in each case. We find that a simple cut on the rapidity of one final-state jet works well. We determine that an accuracy of $\delta g/g\sim 10\%$ on the effective coupling $g$ may be possible after $\sim 200{\mathrm{f}\mathrm{b}}^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity is accumulated at the Large Hadron Collider.