Probing anomalous Higgs couplings in H → ZV decays

Abstract

We analyze the possibility of probing anomalous Higgs couplings in the rare decays H [Formula: see text] ZV, V being a vector quarkonium state. These rare decays involve both gauge as well as the Yukawa sectors and either of them can potentially be anomalous. We show that the branching fractions for H [Formula: see text] ZV decays in Standard Model (SM) are small, making it a sensitive probe for anomalous Higgs couplings originating from physics beyond SM. Moreover, as both V and Z can decay into pair of charged leptons, they provide experimentally clean channels and future LHC runs should observe such decays. We perform a model independent analysis and show how angular asymmetries can be used to probe these anomalous Higgs couplings, taking further decays of V and Z to pair of charged leptons into account. The angular asymmetries can provide significant information about anomalous Higgs couplings in both gauge and Yukawa sectors.