Constraining the Higgs Boson Coupling to Light Quarks in the $H\to ZZ$ Final States

TL;DR

This paper constrains the Higgs boson’s coupling to light quarks using $H o ZZ$ final states, analyzing how deviations from the Standard Model affect the Higgs width and production cross sections, based on CMS data from 2014.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on light quark Yukawa couplings in the $H o ZZ$ channel using LHC data, assuming one coupling varies at a time.

Findings

Constraints on light quark Yukawa couplings are comparable to the tightest existing limits.

Increased light Yukawa couplings affect Higgs width and off-shell production rates.

Results are consistent with Standard Model predictions within uncertainties.

Abstract

We constrain the Higgs boson (Yukawa) coupling to quarks in the first two generations in the $H\to ZZ$ final states. Deviation of these couplings from the Standard Model values leads to change in the Higgs boson width and in the cross sections of relevant processes. In the Higgs boson resonance region, an increased light Yukawa coupling leads to an increased Higgs boson width, which in turn leads to a decreased cross section. In the off-shell region, increased Yukawa couplings result in an enhancement of the Higgs boson signal through $q\bar{q}$ annihilation. With the assumption of scaling one Yukawa coupling at a time, this study is conceptually simple and yields results with the same order of magnitude as the tightest in the literature. The study is based on results published by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2014, corresponding to integrated luminosities of $5.1\ifb$ at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=7\tev$ and $19.7\ifb$ at $8\tev$.