More light on Higgs flavor at the LHC: Higgs couplings to light quarks through $h + \gamma$ production

TL;DR

This paper explores how Higgs production with a photon at the LHC can reveal deviations in light quark Yukawa couplings, using neural networks to assess detection prospects at high luminosity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to probe light quark Higgs couplings via $h + \gamma$ production and employs neural networks for analysis at the HL-LHC.

Findings

Sensitivity to deviations in light quark Yukawa couplings.

Neural network analysis improves detection prospects.

Potential to observe non-standard Higgs interactions.

Abstract

Higgs production in association with a photon at hadron colliders is a rare process, not yet observed at the LHC. We show that this process is sensitive to significant deviations of Higgs couplings to first and second generation SM quarks (particularly the up-type) from their SM values, and use a multivariate neural network analysis to derive the prospects of the High Luminosity LHC to probe deviations in the up and charm Higgs Yukawa couplings through $h + \gamma$ production.