Boosting the Standard Model Higgs Signal with the Template Overlap Method

TL;DR

This paper enhances the Template Overlap Method to improve detection of boosted Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quarks, demonstrating increased background rejection and robustness against pileup effects in collider experiments.

Contribution

The paper introduces several improvements to the Template Overlap Method, including subcone variation, sequential template generation, and integration of b-tagging, to better identify boosted Higgs signals.

Findings

Increased signal-to-background ratio for boosted Higgs events.

Low sensitivity of the method to pileup effects.

Effective background rejection with new template observables.

Abstract

We show that the Template Overlap Method can improve the signal to background ratio of boosted $H\to b \bar b$ events produced in association with a leptonically decaying $W$. We introduce several improvements on the previous formulations of the template method. Varying three-particle template subcones increases the rejection power against the backgrounds, while sequential template generation ensures an efficient coverage in template phase space. We integrate b-tagging information into the template overlap framework and introduce a new template based observable, the template stretch. Our analysis takes into account the contamination from the charm daughters of top decays in $t\bar t$ events, and includes nearly-realistic effects of pileup and underlying events. We show that the Template Overlap Method displays very low sensitivity to pileup, hence providing a self-contained alternative to other methods of pile up subtraction. The developments described in this work are quite general, and may apply to other searches for massive boosted objects.