2015/03/19 by Yi Chen, Roni Harnik, Chen, Yi +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ex #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1503.05855
14 pages
arxiv created 2015/03/19 · openalex publication_date 2015/03/19 · arxiv updated 2015/03/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Higgs decay h→ 4ℓ has played an important role in discovering the Higgs and measuring its mass thanks to low background and excellent resolution. Current cuts in this channel have been optimized for Higgs discovery via the dominant tree level ZZ contribution arising from electroweak symmetry breaking. Going forward, one of the primary objectives of this sensitive channel will be to probe other Higgs couplings and search for new physics on top of the tree level ZZ `background'. Thanks to interference between these small couplings and the large tree level contribution to ZZ, the h→ 4ℓ decay is uniquely capable of probing the magnitude and CP phases of the Higgs couplings to γγ and Zγ as well as, to a lesser extent, ZZ couplings arising from higher dimensional operators. With this in mind we examine how much relaxing current cuts can enhance the sensitivity while also accounting for the dominant non-Higgs continuum qq→4ℓ background. We find the largest enhancement in sensitivity for the hZγ couplings (\gtrsim 100%) followed by hγγ (\gtrsim 40%) and less so for the higher dimensional hZZ couplings (a few percent). With these enhancements, we show that couplings of order Standard Model values for hγγ may optimistically be probed by end of Run-II at the LHC while for hZγ perhaps towards the end of a high luminosity LHC. Thus an appropriately optimized h→4ℓ analysis can complement direct decays of the Higgs to on-shell γγ and Zγ pairs giving a unique opportunity to directly access the CP properties of these couplings.