Identifying the Higgs spin and parity in decays to Z pairs

Abstract

Higgs decays to Z boson pairs may be exploited to determine spin and parity of the Higgs boson, a method complementary to spin–parity measurements in Higgs-strahlung. For a Higgs mass above the on-shell ZZ decay threshold, a model-independent analysis can be performed, but only by making use of additional angular correlation effects in gluon–gluon fusion at the LHC and γγ fusion at linear colliders. In the intermediate mass range, in which the Higgs boson decays into pairs of real and virtual Z bosons, threshold effects and angular correlations, parallel to Higgs-strahlung, may be adopted to determine spin and parity, though high event rates will be required for the analysis in practice.