Higgs exclusion and the H -> WW^* -> l nu c j semi-leptonic channel at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential of the semi-leptonic Higgs decay channel at the Tevatron, focusing on charm tagging improvements to enhance Higgs exclusion limits in the 140-190 GeV mass range.

Contribution

It introduces the feasibility of using the H -> WW* -> l nu c j channel for Higgs exclusion and emphasizes the impact of improved charm tagging acceptance.

Findings

Current charm tagging acceptances can help improve Higgs exclusion limits.

Enhancing charm acceptance to 24% could significantly tighten Higgs mass constraints.

This channel could become the second most restrictive single-channel Higgs search in the specified mass range.

Abstract

We study the Higgs boson decay to W+W-, where one boson decays to leptons, and the other decays to c+jet at Tevatron. Given the current charm tagging acceptances, this channel can help improve and confirm the current combined Tevatron exclusion limit on a standard model-like Higgs boson. If charm acceptance can be improved to at least 24%, this channel could provide the second tightest limits on a Higgs boson mass between 140-190 GeV from a single channel measurement.