Measurement of fiducial differential cross sections of gluon-fusion production of Higgs bosons decaying to $WW^{\ast}{\rightarrow\,}e\nu\mu\nu$ with the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of fiducial and differential cross sections for gluon-fusion Higgs boson production decaying to WW* in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV, using ATLAS data, and compares results with Standard Model predictions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed differential cross section measurements of Higgs production in the WW* decay channel at 8 TeV, with comparisons to theoretical models.

Findings

Measured total and differential cross sections agree with Standard Model predictions.

Provided new data on jet multiplicity and Higgs transverse momentum distributions.

Analyzed jet-veto efficiency in Higgs production events.

Abstract

This paper describes a measurement of fiducial and differential cross sections of gluon-fusion Higgs boson production in the $H{\rightarrow\,}WW^{\ast}{\rightarrow\,}e\nu\mu\nu$ channel, using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data. The data were produced at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2012. Cross sections are measured from the observed $H{\rightarrow\,}WW^{\ast}{\rightarrow\,}e\nu\mu\nu$ signal yield in categories distinguished by the number of associated jets. The total cross section is measured in a fiducial region defined by the kinematic properties of the charged leptons and neutrinos. Differential cross sections are reported as a function of the number of jets, the Higgs boson transverse momentum, the dilepton rapidity, and the transverse momentum of the leading jet. The jet-veto efficiency, or fraction of events with no jets above a given transverse momentum threshold, is also reported. All measurements are compared to QCD predictions from Monte Carlo generators and fixed-order calculations, and are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.