Investigation of Higgs boson couplings via the production of a single top quark in association with a Higgs boson in the $\text{H} \to \text{b} \bar{\text{b}}$ channel

TL;DR

This paper searches for single top quark and Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, aiming to measure Higgs couplings and their signs through the H→bb decay channel.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze the production of a single top quark with a Higgs boson in the H→bb channel at 13 TeV, focusing on coupling sensitivity and background discrimination.

Findings

Set upper limits on Higgs coupling modifiers

Analyzed data from 2015 proton-proton collisions

Enhanced understanding of Higgs coupling signs

Abstract

A search for the production of a single top quark in association with a Higgs boson is performed using the decay $\text{H} \to \text{b} \bar{\text{b}}$. The rate of this Higgs production mode is particularly sensitive to the relative sign of the Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons. The 2015 pp collisions data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are analyzed. This poster focuses on the discrimination between signal and background events. Upper limits, determined in the two-dimensional plane spanned by the coupling modifiers of the Higgs boson to top quarks and to vector bosons, are presented.