Looking for a light Higgs boson in the overlooked channel

TL;DR

This paper explores a previously overlooked decay channel of the Higgs boson into a photon and a Z boson, demonstrating its potential for precise mass reconstruction and sensitivity at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces the analysis of the Higgs to photon and Z decay channel, highlighting its viability for detecting a light Higgs in the 120-130 GeV range.

Findings

Sensitivity to multiple times the SM cross section at 8 TeV with 20 fb^-1

Probing the SM rate at 14 TeV with 100 fb^-1

Accurate Higgs mass reconstruction possible in this channel

Abstract

The final state obtained when a Higgs boson decays to a photon and a Z boson has been mostly overlooked in current searches for a light Higgs boson. However, when the Z boson decays leptonically, all final state particles in this channel can be measured, allowing for accurate reconstructions of the Higgs mass and angular correlations. We determine the sensitivity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) running at center of masses energies of 8 and 14 TeV to Standard Model (SM) Higgs bosons with masses in the 120 - 130 GeV range. For the 8 TeV LHC, sensitivity to several times the the SM cross section times branching ratio may be obtained with 20 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity, while for the 14 TeV LHC, the SM rate is probed with about 100 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity.