Probing the Charm Yukawa Coupling in Higgs + Charm Production

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method to measure the Higgs boson's coupling to charm quarks through Higgs production with a charm jet, aiming to constrain the charm Yukawa coupling at the LHC.

Contribution

It proposes a new experimental approach to probe the charm Yukawa coupling via Higgs + charm production, providing initial estimates of its sensitivity at the LHC.

Findings

Potential to constrain charm Yukawa coupling to order one at the LHC.

Estimated electroweak cross section for $pp o hD^{(*)}$ is not accessible at the LHC.

Method offers a new avenue for Higgs coupling measurements.

Abstract

We propose a new method to determine the coupling of the Higgs boson to charm quarks, via Higgs production in association with a charm-tagged jet: $pp\to hc$. As a first estimate, we find that at the LHC with 3000 fb$^{-1}$ it should be possible to derive a constraint of order one, relative to the SM value of the charm Yukawa coupling. As a byproduct of this analysis, we present an estimate of the exclusive $pp \to hD^{(*)}$ electroweak cross section. Within the SM, the latter turns out to be not accessible at the LHC even in the high-luminosity phase.