Directly Probing the Higgs-top Coupling at High Scales

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to detect new physics effects in the Higgs-top coupling at high energy scales using the $pp\to t\bar{t}h$ process at the high-luminosity LHC, employing effective field theory and advanced analysis techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to probe the Higgs-top coupling at high scales through boosted Higgs analysis and form factor parametrization, extending current sensitivity methods.

Findings

Current searches can effectively probe the Higgs-top coupling at high scales.

The method enhances sensitivity to new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Boosted Higgs techniques improve the precision of coupling measurements.

Abstract

We explore the sensitivity to new physics for the coupling of the Higgs boson ($h$) and top quark ($t$) at high energy scales with the process $pp\to t\bar{t}h$ at the high-luminosity LHC. This process probes the coupling in both the space-like and time-like domains at a high scale, complementary to the off-shell Higgs processes in the time-like domain. The effects from physics beyond the Standard Model are parametrized in terms of the effective field theory framework and a non-local Higgs-top form factor. Focusing on the boosted Higgs regime in association with jet substructure techniques, we show that the present search can directly probe the Higgs-top coupling to good precision, providing a strong sensitivity to the new physics scale.