Search for a high-mass Higgs boson decaying to a $W$ boson pair in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for high-mass Higgs bosons decaying into WW pairs using 8 TeV proton-proton collision data from the ATLAS detector, setting upper limits on production cross sections without finding evidence of such particles.

Contribution

First search to set limits on high-mass Higgs bosons decaying to WW in multiple width scenarios at 8 TeV with ATLAS data.

Findings

No evidence of high-mass Higgs bosons was observed.

Upper limits on cross section times branching ratio were established up to 1500 GeV.

Constraints on Higgs production modes at high masses were provided.

Abstract

A search for a high-mass Higgs boson $H$ is performed in the $H\to{WW}\to\ell\nu\ell\nu$ and $H\to{WW}\to\ell\nu{qq}$ decay channels, using $pp$ collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$, collected at $\sqrt{s}=$ 8 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No evidence of a high-mass Higgs boson is found. Limits on $\sigma_H\times \mathrm{BR}(H\to{WW})$ as a function of the Higgs boson mass $m_H$ are determined in three different scenarios: one in which the heavy Higgs boson has a narrow width compared to the experimental resolution, one a width increasing with the boson mass and modeled by the complex-pole scheme following the same behavior as in the Standard Model, and one for intermediate widths. The upper range of the search is $m_H=1500$ GeV for the narrow-width scenario and $m_H=1000$ GeV for the other two scenarios. The lower edge of the search range is $200-300$ GeV and depends on the analysis channel and search scenario. For each scenario, individual and combined limits from the two $WW$ decay channels are presented. At $m_H = 1500$ GeV, the highest mass point tested, $\sigma_H\cdot\mathrm{BR}(H\rightarrow WW)$ for a narrow-width Higgs boson is constrained to be less than 22 fb and 6.6 fb at the 95% CL for the gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion production modes, respectively.