The Higgs At The Tevatron: Predictions And Uncertainties

We update the theoretical predictions for the production cross sections of the Standard Model Higgs boson at the Tevatron in the gluon–gluon fusion and the Higgs–strahlung channels, including all relevant higher order QCD and electroweak corrections in perturbation theory. We estimate the different sources of uncertainties: the scale uncertainties, the uncertainties from the parton distribution functions and the related errors on the strong coupling constant as well as the uncertainties coming from the use of an effective theory approach in the gg → H process. We find that, when added in a consistent way, these errors amount to ≈ 40% in the main gg → H → W W (*) → $lνlν$ search channel, implying that the recent exclusion of the Higgs mass range $M_H$ = 162–166 GeV by CDF and D0 experiments should be reconsidered.