Polarized WW Scattering on the Higgs Pole

TL;DR

This paper explores how to distinguish Higgs couplings to different polarization states of gauge bosons near the Higgs resonance, using jet kinematics in weak boson scattering at the LHC.

Contribution

It proposes a novel method to probe Higgs couplings to longitudinal and transverse gauge bosons away from high energies, focusing on jet kinematics near the Higgs resonance.

Findings

Potential to test Higgs couplings at 20% level during upcoming LHC run

Method to separate polarization states in weak boson scattering

Insights into physics beyond the Standard Model

Abstract

The Higgs discovery has given us the Higgs-gauge sector as a new handle to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. This includes physics scenarios originally linked to massive gauge boson scattering at high energies. We investigate how one can separately probe the Higgs couplings to the longitudinal and transverse parts of the massive gauge bosons away from this high-energy limit. Deviations from the Standard Model could originate from higher-dimensional operators, compositeness, or even more fundamentally from a violation of gauge invariance. The signature we propose is the tagging jet kinematics in weak boson scattering for scattering energies close to the Higgs resonance. During the upcoming LHC run at 13 TeV we will be able to test these couplings at the 20% level.