Constraining anomalous Higgs interactions

TL;DR

This paper constrains anomalous Higgs interactions by analyzing collider data within a model-independent framework, revealing potential deviations in Higgs production and decay rates from Standard Model predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a model-independent approach using dimension-six operators to analyze Higgs couplings, providing new constraints based on Tevatron and LHC data.

Findings

Suppressed gluon fusion Higgs production cross section.

Enhanced Higgs decay into two photons.

Couplings to weak gauge bosons remain close to SM values.

Abstract

The recently announced Higgs discovery marks the dawn of the direct probing of the electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Sorting out the dynamics responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking now requires probing the Higgs interactions and searching for additional states connected to this sector. In this work we analyze the constraints on Higgs couplings to the standard model gauge bosons using the available data from Tevatron and LHC. We work in a model--independent framework expressing the departure of the Higgs couplings to gauge bosons by dimension--six operators. This allows for independent modifications of its couplings to gluons, photons and weak gauge bosons while still preserving the Standard Model (SM) gauge invariance. Our results indicate that best overall agreement with data is obtained if the cross section of Higgs production via gluon fusion is suppressed with respect to its SM value and the Higgs branching ratio into two photons is enhanced, while keeping the production and decays associated to couplings to weak gauge bosons close to their SM prediction.