Diffractive Higgs boson photoproduction in $\gamma p$ process

TL;DR

This paper investigates an alternative diffractive Higgs boson production process in photon-proton interactions, estimating higher event rates and comparing with existing models to enhance detection prospects at colliders.

Contribution

It introduces the impact factor formalism for gluon ladder exchange in photon-proton interactions, providing new estimates for Higgs production rates in diffractive processes.

Findings

Estimated Higgs production rate of 0.6 pb at Tevatron and LHC.

Predicted rates are higher than other diffractive models.

Comparison with Durham group's approach suggests potential for improved detection.

Abstract

We explore an alternative process for the diffractive Higgs boson production in peripheral pp collisions arising from Double Pomeron Exchange in photon-proton interaction. We introduce the impact factor formalism in order to enable the gluon ladder exchange in the photon-proton subprocess, and to permit the central Higgs production. The event rate for the diffractive Higgs production in central rapidity is estimated to be about 0.6 pb at Tevatron and LHC energies. This result is higher than predictions from other approaches for diffractive Higgs production, showing that the alternative production process leads to an enhanced signal for the detection of the Higgs boson at hadron colliders. Our results are compared to those obtained from a similar approach proposed by the Durham group. In this way we may examine the future developments in its application to pp and AA collisions.