Ditau jets in Higgs searches

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method for identifying ditau jets, which are crucial for detecting Higgs decays to new light scalars, using subjet observables to improve analysis sensitivity and enable early Higgs discovery.

Contribution

It introduces a new ditau jet tagging technique based on subjet observables, enhancing detection of Higgs decays to tau pairs in BSM scenarios.

Findings

Light Higgs can be discovered with S/√B ≥ 5 using about 12 fb⁻¹ of data.

The proposed likelihood-based tagger effectively discriminates ditau jets from background.

Analysis can facilitate early Higgs detection in models with light scalars.

Abstract

Understanding and identifying ditau jets -- jets consisting of pairs of tau particles, can be of crucial importance and may even turn out to be a necessity if the Higgs boson decays dominantly to new light scalars which, on the other hand, decay to tau pairs. As often seen in various models of BSM such as in the NMSSM, Higgs portals etc., the lightness of these new states ensures their large transverse momenta and, as a consequence, the collinearity of their decay products. We show that the non-standard signatures of these objects, which can easily be missed by standard analysis techniques, can be superbly exploited in an analysis based on subjet observables. When combined with additional selection strategies, this analysis can even facilitate an early discovery of the Higgs boson. To be specific, a light Higgs can be found with $S/\sqrt{B} \gtrsim 5$ from $\mathcal {L} \simeq 12 fb^{-1}$ of data. We combine all these observables into a single discriminating likelihood that can be employed toward the construction of a realistic and standalone ditau tagger.