Higgs boson decay into four bottom quarks in the SM and beyond

We present predictions for the Higgs boson decay into four bottom quarks in the standard model and via light exotic scalars retaining full bottom-quark mass dependence. In the SM the decay can be induced either by the Yukawa couplings of bottom quarks and top quarks or the electroweak couplings. We calculate the partial decay width and various differential distributions up to next-to-leading order in QCD. We find large QCD corrections for decay via Yukawa couplings, as large as 90% for the partial decay width, and reduced scale variations. The results of this paper are therefore helpful for the measurement of this multi-jets final state at future Higgs factory of electron-positron colliders. We also propose several observables that can differentiate the SM decay channel and the exotic decay channel and compare their next-to-leading order predictions.