Contributor info: Dr Jonathon M. Langford

Nicolas Berger, Claudia Bertella, Matteo Bonanomi, Nihal Brahimi, Thomas P. Calvet, Milene Calvetti, Valerio Dao, Marco Delmastro, Michael Duehrssen-Debling, Paolo Francavilla, Yacine Haddad, Sarah Heim, Jelena Jovicevic, Oleh Kivernyk, Maria Moreno Llacer, Jonathon M. Langford, Changqiao Li, Giovanni Marchiori, Josh A. McFayden, Johannes K. L. Michel, Predrag Milenovic, Carlo E. Pandini, Edward Scott, Frank J. Tackmann, Kerstin Tackmann, Lorenzo Viliani, Meng Xiao, Hongtao Yang

SciPost Phys. Comm. Rep. 15 (2026) · published 7 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Simplified Template Cross Sections (STXS) have been adopted by the LHC experiments as a common framework for Higgs measurements. Their purpose is to reduce the theoretical uncertainties that are directly folded into the measurements as much as possible, while at the same time allowing for the combination of the measurements between different decay channels as well as between experiments. We report the complete, revised definition of the STXS kinematic bins (stage 1.1 and stage 1.2), which have been used for the measurements by the ATLAS and CMS experiments using the full LHC Run 2 datasets. The main focus is on the four dominant Higgs production processes, namely gluon-fusion, vector-boson fusion, production in association with a vector boson and in association with a $t\bar t$ pair. We also comment briefly on the treatment of other production modes.