Higgs Hadroproduction at Large Feynman x

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new mechanism for Higgs boson production in hadronic collisions, emphasizing the role of intrinsic heavy quarks in the proton, predicting a significant forward peak in the cross section at high Feynman x.

Contribution

It proposes a novel intrinsic heavy quark mechanism for Higgs production, distinct from gluon fusion, with specific predictions for forward production at colliders.

Findings

Predicted cross section of about 150 fb at LHC for intrinsic bottom Higgs production.

Higgs produced via this mechanism peaks at high x_F around 0.9.

The intrinsic bottom contribution dominates over gluon fusion at high x_F.

Abstract

We propose a novel mechanism for the production of the Higgs boson in inclusive hadronic collisions, which utilizes the presence of heavy quarks in the proton wave function. In these inclusive reactions the Higgs boson acquires the momenta of both the heavy quark and antiquark and thus carries 80% or more of the projectile's momentum. We predict that the cross section ${d \sigma/d x_F}(p \bar p \to H X)$ for the inclusive production of the Standard Model Higgs coming from intrinsic bottom Fock states is of order 150 fb at LHC energies, peaking in the region of $x_F \sim 0.9$. Our estimates indicate that the corresponding cross section coming from gluon-gluon fusion at $x_F = 0.9$ is relatively negligible and therefore the peak from intrinsic bottom should be clearly visible for experiments with forward detection capabilities. The predicted cross section for the production of the Standard Model Higgs coming from intrinsic heavy quark Fock states in the proton is sufficiently large that detection at the Tevatron and the LHC may be possible.