Vector boson polarizations in the decay of the Standard Model Higgs

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how the decay products of the Standard Model Higgs boson reveal the polarization states of the intermediate vector bosons, using analytical decomposition and sensitive observables.

Contribution

It provides an analytical decomposition of the Higgs decay amplitude into polarized components and identifies key observables sensitive to vector boson polarizations.

Findings

Invariant mass of lepton pairs is sensitive to boson polarization.

Lepton angular distributions in the boson rest frame reveal polarization states.

Analytical expressions for polarized decay amplitudes are derived.

Abstract

The kinematic distributions of the lepton pairs produced in the decay of the Standard Model Higgs to ZZ and WW are related to the polarization fractions of the virtual vector bosons. The full amplitude can be decomposed analytically into a sum of polarized terms. Several observables, in particular the invariant mass of two charged leptons, one from each of the bosons, and the lepton angular distribution in the vector boson center of mass are shown to be sensitive to the boson polarizations.