Re-weighing the evidence for a Higgs boson in dileptonic W-boson decays

Abstract

We reconsider observables for discovering and measuring the mass of a Higgs boson via its di-leptonic decays: H --> WW* --> l nu l nu. We define an observable generalizing the transverse mass that takes into account the fact that one of the intermediate W-bosons is likely to be on-shell. We compare this new variable with existing ones and argue that it gives a significant improvement for discovery in the region m_h < 2 m_W.

3 pages, 2 figures. Changes in v2: (i) implemented a model of detector smearing, (ii) switched LHC simulation from 14 TeV to 7 TeV running, (iii) presenting results for 10 rather than 3 inverse femtobarns, (iv) corrected a typo in Fig 2 legend. Changes in v3: included published erratum

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Precision studies of the Higgs boson decay channel H -> ZZ -> 4l with MEKD
• On-shell constrained $M_2$ variables with applications to mass measurements and topology disambiguation
• Higgs boson search significance deformations due to mixed-in scalars
• OPTIMASS: A Package for the Minimization of Kinematic Mass Functions with Constraints
• Testing Invisible Momentum Ansatze in Missing Energy Events at the LHC
• Finding Higgs bosons heavier than 2 m_W in dileptonic W-boson decays