Study of Higgs boson production and its b anti-b decay in gamma-gamma processes in proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC
Sep, 2009
22 pages
Published in:
- Phys.Rev.D 81 (2010) 014004
e-Print:
- 0909.3047 [hep-ph]
Report number:
- SLAC-PUB-13786
Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
We explore for the first time the possibilities to measure an intermediate-mass (mH = 115-140 GeV/c^2) Standard-Model Higgs boson in electromagnetic proton-lead (pPb) interactions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) via its b-bbar decay. Using equivalent Weizsaecker-Williams photon fluxes and Higgs effective field theory for the coupling gamma-gamma-->H, we obtain a leading-order cross section of the order of 0.3 pb for exclusive Higgs production in elastic (pPb --> gamma-gamma -->p H Pb) and semielastic (pPb-->gamma-gamma --> Pb H X) processes at sqrt(s) = 8.8 TeV. After applying various kinematics cuts to remove the main backgrounds (gamma-gamma-->b-bbar and misidentified gamma-gamma-->q-qbar events), we find that a Higgs boson with mH = 120 GeV/c^2 could be observed in the b-bbar channel with a 3sigma-significance integrating 300 pb^-1 with an upgraded pA luminosity of 10^31 cm^-2s^-1. We also provide for the first time semielastic Higgs cross sections, along with elastic t-tbar cross sections, for electromagnetic pp, pA and AA collisions at the LHC .Note:
- 22 pages, 8 figures
- 14.80.Bn
- 25.20.Lj
- Higgs particle: photoproduction
- CERN LHC Coll
- photon photon: fusion
- equivalent photon approximation
- p nucleus: inelastic scattering
- p nucleus: inclusive reaction
- lead
- exchange: two-photon
References(0)
Figures(11)
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