An Investigation of Signal Kinematical Region to Study Standard Model Higgs Boson Properties in the H → WW* → ℓvℓv Decay Channel in the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at 13 TeV

Abstract

A signal kinematical region is analyzed by the Higgs Boson Working Group (HWW) within the framework of a study of the Standard Model Higgs boson properties in the H → WW* → evev decay channel in the ATLAS experiment on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The analysis is based on the full statistics of proton-proton collision data during exposures in 2015–2016 at the center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. As compared to our previous analysis, the reconstruction software is updated and the simulation accuracy of backgrounds is improved. Events taken at low and high LHC luminosity are studied separately. In addition, the kinematics at the later stages of event selection is investigated in detail and systematic uncertainties are fully estimated. It is shown that the Monte Carlo modeling satisfactorily describes the experimental data at different selection stages. Kinematic distributions for hadron jets are studied also in the Z-boson control region, where the acquired data reach the order of ten million events. As compared to the previous investigation, the modeling accuracy of Z and background processes is noticeably improved, and events at low and high LHC luminosities are studied separately. Furthermore, all systematic uncertainties related to jets are estimated as well. As a whole, good agreement between experimental results and Monte Carlo simulation data is observed. No problems that would be caused by high luminosity are observed.