Evaluation of measurement accuracy of $h \to \tau ^+ \tau ^-$ branching ratio at the ILC with $\sqrt{s} = 250$ GeV and 500 GeV

TL;DR

This study assesses the precision of measuring the Higgs boson decay to tau pairs at the ILC at 250 GeV and 500 GeV, demonstrating achievable accuracies of around 3.5% to 7.5% depending on the process and energy.

Contribution

It provides detailed simulation-based estimates of the measurement accuracy for the $h o \tau^+ \tau^-$ branching ratio at different ILC energies and configurations, including various decay modes and beam polarizations.

Findings

Measurement accuracy of 3.5% at 250 GeV

Measurement accuracy of 5.7% to 7.5% at 500 GeV

Analysis of different Z decay modes and fusion processes

Abstract

We evaluate the measurement accuracy of the branching ratio of $h \to \tau ^+ \tau ^-$ at $\sqrt{s} = 250$ GeV and 500 GeV at the ILC with the ILD detector simulation. For the $\sqrt{s} = 250$ GeV, we assume the Higgs mass of $M_h = 120$ GeV, branching ratio of $\mathrm{Br}(h \to \tau ^+ \tau ^-) = 8.0 \ %$, beam polarization of $P(e^-, e^+) = (-0.8, +0.3)$, and integrated luminosity of $\int L \ dt = 250 \ \mathrm{fb ^{-1}}$. The Higgs-strahlung process $e^+ e^- \to Zh$ with $Z \to e^+ e^-$, $Z \to \mu ^+ \mu ^-$, $Z \to q\bar{q}$ mode are analyzed. The measurement accuracy is calculated to be $\Delta (\sigma \cdot \mathrm{Br}) / (\sigma \cdot \mathrm{Br}) = 3.5 \ %$. The scaled result to $M_h = 125$ GeV is estimated to be $4.2 \ %$. For the $\sqrt{s} = 500$ GeV, we assume the Higgs mass of $M_h = 125$ GeV, branching ratio of $\mathrm{Br}(h \to \tau ^+ \tau ^-) = 6.32 \ %$, beam polarization of $P(e^-, e^+) = (-0.8, +0.3)$, and integrated luminosity of $\int L \ dt = 500 \ \mathrm{fb ^{-1}}$. The Higgs-strahlung process $e^+ e^- \to Zh$ with $Z \to q\bar{q}$ mode and $WW$-fusion process $e^+ e^- \to \nu_e \bar{\nu_e} h$ are analyzed. The measurement accuracy is calculated to be $\Delta (\sigma \cdot \mathrm{Br}) / (\sigma \cdot \mathrm{Br}) = 5.7 \ %$ for Higgs-strahlung with $Z \to q\bar{q}$ and $7.5 \ %$ for $WW$-fusion.