Abstract
We discuss the production of a heavy neutral Higgs boson of a CP-conserving Two-Higgs-Doublet Model in gluon fusion and its decay into a four-fermion final state, $gg (\rightarrow VV) \rightarrow e^+e^-\mu^+\mu^-/e^+e^-\nu_l\bar\nu_l$. We investigate the interference contributions to invariant mass distributions of the four-fermion final state and other relevant kinematical observables. The relative importance of the different contributions is quantified for the process in the on-shell approximation, $gg\rightarrow ZZ$. We show that interferences of the heavy Higgs with the light Higgs boson and background contributions are essential for a correct description of the differential cross section. Even though they contribute below $\mathcal{O}(10\%)$ to those heavy Higgs signal cross sections, to which the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider were sensitive in its first run, we find that they are sizeable in certain regions of the parameter space that are relevant for future heavy Higgs boson searches. In fact, the interference contributions can significantly enhance the experimental sensitivity to the heavy Higgs boson.
Highlights
The two multi-purpose experiments ATLAS and CMS at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) discovered in 2012 a scalar resonance at 125 GeV [1,2], which is compatible with a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson
In our analysis of the interference contributions to the process gg → (V V ) → e+e−μ+μ−/e+e−νl νl we find that neglecting the interference contributions of the heavy Higgs boson with the background and the light Higgs boson in the ATLAS analysis has been justified in view of the experimental sensitivity that has been reached in the first run of the LHC
We have investigated the production of a heavy Higgs boson of a CP-conserving Two-Higgs-Doublet-Model in gluon fusion and its subsequent decay into a four-fermion final state
Summary
The two multi-purpose experiments ATLAS and CMS at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) discovered in 2012 a scalar resonance at 125 GeV [1,2], which is compatible with a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson. The ATLAS experiment provided an interpretation in terms of the 2HDM, neglecting possible interferences between the heavy Higgs signal and the background as well as with the contribution of the light Higgs boson. In our analysis of the interference contributions to the process gg → (V V ) → e+e−μ+μ−/e+e−νl νl we find that neglecting the interference contributions of the heavy Higgs boson with the background and the light Higgs boson in the ATLAS analysis has been justified in view of the experimental sensitivity that has been reached in the first run of the LHC. [45] suggests to use a multiplicative factor covering the interference effects in the context of a 2HDM We find it preferable to take into account all interferences of the light Higgs boson, the heavy Higgs boson and the background consistently in the setup of a 2HDM in order to describe the cross section at high invariant masses accurately, as done in the present paper.
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