Higgs Boson Production in Association with a Photon in Vector Boson Fusion at the LHC

Abstract

Higgs boson production in association with two forward jets and a central photon at the CERN Large Hadron Collider is analyzed, for the Higgs boson decaying into a b bbar pair in the m_H <= 140 GeV mass region. We study both irreducible and main reducible backgrounds at parton level. Compared to the Higgs production via vector-boson fusion, the request of a further photon at moderate rapidities dramatically enhances the signal/background ratio. Inclusive cross sections for p_T^γ>= 20 GeV can reach a few tens of fb's. After a suitable choice of kinematical cuts, the cross-section ratio for signal and irreducible-background can be enhanced up to >= ~1/10, with a signal cross section of the order of a few fb's, for m_H ~ 120 GeV. The request of a central photon radiation also enhances the relative signal sensitivity to the WWH coupling with respect to the ZZH coupling. Hence, a determination of the cross section for the associated production of a Higgs boson decaying into a b bbar pair plus a central photon in vector-boson fusion could help in constraining the b bbar H coupling, and the WWH coupling as well. A preliminary study of QCD showering effects points to a further significant improvement of the signal detectability over the background.

30 pages, 8 figures, 8 tables; minor corrections to the text; version appeared in Nuclear Physics B

References in corpus (1)

• Les Houches Physics at TeV Colliders 2005, Standard Model and Higgs working group: Summary report

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Measuring the Higgs Sector
• Observation of electroweak production of two jets in association with an isolated photon and missing transverse momentum, and search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles at 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Constraining SMEFT operators with associated $h\gamma$ production in Weak Boson Fusion
• Search for Higgs boson production in association with a high-energy photon via vector-boson fusion with decay into bottom quark pairs at $\sqrt{s}$=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs production at a future lepton-proton collider
• Higgs to charm quarks in vector boson fusion plus a photon
• Prospects for Observing the Standard Model Higgs Boson Decaying into b\bar{b} Final States Produced in Weak Boson Fusion with an Associated Photon at the LHC
• A new analysis of PP --> bblvjj at the LHC: Higgs and W boson associated production with two tag jets
• Illuminating all-hadronic final states with a photon: Exotic decays of the Higgs boson to four bottom quarks in vector boson fusion plus gamma at hadron colliders
• Search for Higgs bosons produced in association with a high-energy photon via vector-boson fusion and decaying to a pair of $b$-quarks in the ATLAS detector