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 $G^{3}h$ and $G^{2}h$ operators in the $m_h<p_T$ limit at lowest order. One dimension-7 operator involving quark bilinears, however, contributes significantly at high $p_T$ 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 $\mathcal{O}(1/m_t^2)$ contributions in the Standard Model limit.

• Received 30 September 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.093007