On the possibility to detect the Higgs decay $H\to b\bar b$ in the associated $Z + b\bar b$ production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential to detect the Higgs decay to bottom quarks in association with a Z boson at the LHC using a novel QCD approach, emphasizing the importance of angular correlations for signal identification.

Contribution

It introduces a $k_T$-factorization QCD framework with off-shell amplitudes and CCFM dynamics to analyze Higgs detection prospects in $Z + b\bar{b}$ production.

Findings

Higgs decay signal may be observable at high transverse momenta.

Angular correlations between Z boson and b-quarks are crucial for signal extraction.

The approach accounts for complex QCD backgrounds and off-shell effects.

Abstract

We investigate the possibility to detect the scalar Higgs boson decay $H\to b\bar b$ in the associated $Z$ and $b\bar b$ production at the LHC using the $k_T$-factorization QCD approach. Our consideration is based on the off-shell (i.e. depending on the transverse momenta of initial quarks and gluons) production amplitudes of $q^* \bar q^* \to Z H \to Z q^\prime \bar q^\prime$, $q^* \bar q^* \to Z q^\prime \bar q^\prime$ and $g^* g^* \to Z q^\prime \bar q^\prime$ partonic subprocesses supplemented with the Catani-Ciafoloni-Fiorani-Marchesini (CCFM) dynamics of parton densities in a proton. We argue that the $H \to b\bar b$ signal could be observed at large transverse momenta near Higgs boson peak despite the overwhelming QCD background, and point out an important role of angular correlations between the produced $Z$ boson and $b$-quarks.