Top Background Extrapolation for H -> WW Searches at the LHC

Abstract

A leading order (LO) analysis is presented that demonstrates that key top backgrounds to H -> W^+W^- -> l^\pm l^\mp \sla{p}_T decays in weak boson fusion (WBF) and gluon fusion (GF) at the CERN Large Hadron Collider can be extrapolated from experimental data with an accuracy of order 5% to 10%. If LO scale variation is accepted as proxy for the theoretical error, parton level results indicate that the tt~j background to the H -> WW search in WBF can be determined with a theoretical error of about 5%, while the tt~ background to the H -> WW search in GF can be determined with a theoretical error of better than 1%. Uncertainties in the parton distribution functions contribute an estimated 3% to 10% to the total error.

17 pages, 9 tables, 4 figures; LO caveat emphasized, version to be published in Phys. Rev. D

References in corpus (6)

• Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson at LEP
• Higgs boson production at hadron colliders in NNLO QCD
• NNLO corrections to the total cross section for Higgs boson production in hadron-hadron collisions
• Matching NLO QCD and parton showers in heavy flavour production
• Next-to-leading order jet distributions for Higgs boson production via weak-boson fusion
• Top Pair Production Beyond Double-Pole Approximation: pp, pp~ --> 6 Fermions and 0, 1 or 2 Additional Partons

Cited by in corpus (6)

• MadGraph/MadEvent v4: The New Web Generation
• p p -> j j e+/- mu+/- nu nu and j j e+/- mu-/+ nu nu at O(α_{em}^6) and O(α_{em}^4 α_s^2) for the Study of the Quartic Electroweak Gauge Boson Vertex at LHC
• The gluon-fusion uncertainty in Higgs coupling extractions
• Normalizing Weak Boson Pair Production at the Large Hadron Collider
• Extraction of Top Backgrounds in the Higgs Boson Search with the $H\to W{W}^{\ast }\to \ell \ell +E_{\mathrm{T}}^{\mathrm{miss}}$ Decay with a Full-Jet Veto at the LHC
• Accurate backgrounds to Higgs production at the LHC