Contributions of flavor violating couplings of a Higgs boson to $pp\to WW$

Abstract

We study contributions to $pp\to W^{+}{W}^{-}\to \ell \hat{I}{½}_{\ell }{\ell }^{\prime }\hat{I}{½}_{{\ell }^{\prime }}$ in models with a new Higgs boson, $H$, and a neutral lepton, $\hat{I}{½}_4$, with couplings $H-\hat{I}{½}_4-\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼$ and $W-\hat{I}{½}_4-\hat{I}¼$ through the process $pp\to H\to \hat{I}{½}_4\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼\to W\hat{I}¼\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼\to \ell \hat{I}{½}_{\ell }\hat{I}¼\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼$. Contrary to naive expectations, we find that contributions to $pp\to WW$ can be very large while satisfying constraints from standard $H\to WW$ and $H\to {\hat{I}}^3{\hat{I}}^3$ searches. Even the excess observed by ATLAS in $pp\to WW$, if taken at face value, can be easily accommodated. The various kinematic distributions fit nicely the experimentally determined ones. This scenario can arise for example in a two Higgs doublet model with vectorlike leptons.

16 pages, 5 figures