MEASUREMENT OF THE HIGGS BRANCHING RATIO BR($H\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$) AT 3 TeV CLIC

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of a 3 TeV CLIC collider to precisely measure the Higgs boson's decay to two photons, which could reveal new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Contribution

It presents a detailed simulation-based analysis of the measurement accuracy of BR(H→γγ) at 3 TeV CLIC, including all relevant physics and beam effects.

Findings

BR(H→γγ) can be measured with 5.5% relative uncertainty

Simulation includes full detector reconstruction and physics processes

Results support CLIC's capability to probe Higgs couplings for new physics

Abstract

In this paper we address the potential of a 3 TeV centre-of-mass energy Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) to measure the branching fraction of the Higgs boson decay to two photons, BR($H\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$). Since photons are massless, the Higgs boson coupling to photons is realized through higher order processes involving heavy particles either from the Standard Model or beyond. Any deviation of the measured BR($H\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$), and consequently of the Higgs coupling $g_{H\gamma\gamma}$ from the predictions of the Standard Model, may indicate New Physics. The Higgs decay to two photons is thus an interesting probe of the Higgs sector. This study is performed using simulation of the detector for CLIC and by considering all relevant physics and beam-induced processes in a full reconstruction chain. It is shown that the product of the Higgs production cross-section in $W^+W^-$ fusion and BR($H\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$) can be measured with a relative statistical uncertainty of 5.5\%, assuming the integrated luminosity of 5 ab$^{-1}$ and unpolarized beams.