2025/10/07 by Ulrich Haisch, Haisch, Ulrich · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.05773
openalex publication_date 2025/10/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The decay of the Higgs boson into two photons, h → γγ, is a loop-induced process within the Standard Model, predominantly mediated by loops of W bosons and top quarks. While these leading contributions are well understood, the role of hadronic effects, which arise from non-perturbative QCD dynamics, has received less attention, with recent studies reporting puzzling and contradictory results. In this work, we present a systematic evaluation of the hadronic contributions to the h → γγ decay width using dispersion relations. Our analysis shows that these contributions are exceedingly small, as expected, altering the decay width by about 0.004% under conservative assumptions. Therefore, hadronic effects can be safely neglected even in the context of future high-precision Higgs measurements at current and next-generation colliders. As an aside, we also estimate the possible size of hadronic contributions to Higgs production in gluon-gluon fusion.