Evidence of Higgs boson inclusive production at high transverse momentum decaying to a pair of $b$-quarks with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper provides the first evidence of Higgs boson production at high transverse momentum decaying into a $b$-quark pair, using advanced jet identification techniques with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces a transformer-based algorithm and a regression model for improved jet identification and resolution, enabling the first evidence of high-$p_T$ Higgs production in the $b\bar{b}$ channel.

Findings

Measured yield at high $p_T$ exceeds Standard Model prediction.

Achieved a significance of 3.8 sigma for Higgs detection.

Results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.

Abstract

This letter reports on the first evidence of Higgs-boson production at high transverse momentum in the $b\bar{b}$ final state, reconstructed in a single large-radius jet. The results are based on proton proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energies of 13 TeV and 13.6 TeV, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 301 fb$^{-1}$. The study profits from the large background suppression provided by the use of a new transformer-based algorithm for jet identification and the sharper mass and transverse momentum, $p_{\text{T}}$, resolution from a dedicated regression model. The yield relative to the Standard Model prediction, for Higgs bosons produced at $p_{\text{T}}$ larger than 450 GeV is measured to be $1.53\pm 0.27\text{(stat.)}\ ^{+0.33}_{-0.27}\text{(syst.)}\pm 0.17\text{(theo.)}$ corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of $3.8\sigma(2.5\sigma)$ relative to the background-only hypothesis. Results are also obtained in three Higgs boson $p_{\text{T}}$ intervals and found to be compatible with Standard Model predictions.