Higgs boson decays to quarkonia and the Hccbar coupling

TL;DR

This paper investigates Higgs boson decays to quarkonia with a photon, proposing a new production mechanism that enhances decay rate predictions and offers a way to directly measure the Higgs-charm coupling at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for Higgs decays to quarkonia plus photon, significantly altering decay rate estimates and enabling direct probing of the Higgs-charm coupling.

Findings

New production mechanism increases decay rate predictions by an order of magnitude.

H o J/ + gamma decay should be observable at 14 TeV LHC.

Decay rates are sensitive to the Higgs-quark coupling due to quantum interference.

Abstract

In this paper we discuss decays of the Higgs boson to quarkonia in association with a photon. We identify a new mechanism for producing such final states in Higgs decays that leads to predictions for the decay rates that differ by an order of magnitude from previous estimates. Although the branching ratios for these processes are still small, the processes are experimentally clean, and the H \to J/\psi+gamma decay should be observable at a 14 TeV LHC. We point out that quantum interference between two different production mechanisms makes the decay rates sensitive to the HQQbar couplings. Consequently, measurements of the H \to J/\psi+gamma decay rate would allow one to probe the Higgs-charm coupling directly at the LHC. We discuss the experimental prospects for the observation of these decays and for the direct measurement of the Hccbar coupling.