Fiducial and differential cross sections of Higgs boson production measured in the four-lepton decay channel in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of Higgs boson production cross sections in the four-lepton decay channel at 8 TeV, comparing results with Standard Model predictions and finding no significant deviations.

Contribution

First measurement of fiducial and differential Higgs cross sections in the four-lepton channel at 8 TeV with detailed kinematic binning and comparison to theoretical models.

Findings

Measured cross sections agree with Standard Model predictions

No significant deviations observed in differential distributions

Provides benchmark data for future Higgs boson studies

Abstract

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections of Higgs boson production in the ${H \rightarrow ZZ ^{*}\rightarrow 4\ell}$ decay channel are presented. The cross sections are determined within a fiducial phase space and corrected for detection efficiency and resolution effects. They are based on 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data, produced at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV centre-of-mass energy at the LHC and recorded by the ATLAS detector. The differential measurements are performed in bins of transverse momentum and rapidity of the four-lepton system, the invariant mass of the subleading lepton pair and the decay angle of the leading lepton pair with respect to the beam line in the four-lepton rest frame, as well as the number of jets and the transverse momentum of the leading jet. The measured cross sections are compared to selected theoretical calculations of the Standard Model expectations. No significant deviation from any of the tested predictions is found.