Production and detection of heavy matter anti-matter from Higgs decays

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for Higgs boson decays into heavy nuclei and anti-nuclei, suggesting that such events could be observable and provide insights into the Higgs' role in nucleon mass.

Contribution

It introduces a calculation of Higgs decay into heavy nuclei and anti-nuclei, highlighting the possibility of detecting such rare events experimentally.

Findings

Higgs decay into heavy nuclei and anti-nuclei could be significant near threshold

Final state Coulomb corrections and form factors increase decay rate estimates

Observation of these decays would be unprecedented and impactful

Abstract

The one-loop Higgs coupling to two gluons has been invoked in the past to estimate that the fraction of the nucleon mass which is due to the Higgs is rather small but calculable (approximately 8 percent). To test the veracity of this hypothesis, we employ the same mechanism to compute the Higgs coupling to an arbitrary stable nucleus $A$ and its anti-nucleus $\bar{A}$. We find that the physical decay rate of a Higgs into a spin zero $A\bar{A}$ pair near the threshold corresponding to the Higgs mass is quite substantial, once we include the final state Coulomb corrections as well as possible form factor effects. If true, observation of even a few such decay events would be truly spectacular (with no competing background) since we are unaware of any other interaction which might lead to the production of a very heavy nucleus accompanied by its anti nucleus in nucleon-(anti-) nucleon scattering.