Light Quark Yukawa Couplings Research Articles

Probing light quark Yukawa couplings through angularity distributions in Higgs boson decay

We propose to utilize angularity distributions in Higgs boson decay to probe light quark Yukawa couplings at e+e− colliders. Angularities τa are a class of 2-jet event shapes with variable and tunable sensitivity to the distribution of radiation in hadronic jets in the final state. Using soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), we present a prediction of angularity distributions from Higgs decaying to quark and gluon states at e+e− colliders to NNLL + \U0001d4aa(αs) accuracy. Due to the different color structures in quark and gluon jets, the angularity distributions from H → \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$q\\overline{q }$$\\end{document} and H → gg show different behaviors and can be used to constrain the light quark Yukawa couplings. We show that the upper limit of light quark Yukawa couplings could be probed to the level of ~ 15% of the bottom quark Yukawa coupling in the Standard Model in a conservative analysis window far away from nonperturbative effects and other uncertainties; the limit can be pushed to ≲ 7 – 9% with better control of the nonperturbative effects especially on gluon angularity distributions and/or with multiple angularities.

Light-quark Yukawa couplings from off-shell Higgs production

Yukawa couplings of the first quark generation are notoriously difficult to constrain due to their small values within the Standard Model. Here we propose Higgs off-shell production, with the Higgs boson decaying to four leptons, as a probe of the up- and down-quark Yukawa couplings. Using kinematic discriminants similar to the ones employed in the Higgs width measurements we find that the down (up) Yukawa coupling can be constrained to a factor of 156 (260) times its Standard Model value at the high-luminosity LHC assuming only experimental systematic uncertainties. Off-shell Higgs production hence provides better sensitivity to the first-generation quark Yukawa couplings with respect to other probes such as Higgs+jet or Higgs pair production.

Machine learning the trilinear and light-quark Yukawa couplings from Higgs pair kinematic shapes

Revealing the Higgs pair production process is the next big challenge in high energy physics. In this work, we explore the use of interpretable machine learning and cooperative game theory for extraction of the trilinear Higgs self-coupling in Higgs pair production. In particular, we show how a topological decomposition of the gluon-gluon fusion Higgs pair production process can be used to simplify the machine learning analysis flow. Furthermore, we extend the analysis to include qoverline{q} → hh production, which is strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, to extract the trilinear Higgs coupling and to bound large deviations of the light-quark Yukawa couplings from the Standard Model values. The constraints on the rescaling of the trilinear Higgs self-coupling, κλ, and the rescaling of light-quark Yukawa couplings, κu and κd, at HL-LHC (FCC-hh) from single parameter fits are:κλ=0.531.70.971.03κu=−470430−5855κd=−360360−2628\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ {\\displaystyle \\begin{array}{c}{\\kappa}_{\\lambda }=\\left[0.53,1.7\\right]\\ \\left(\\left[0.97,1.03\\right]\\right)\\\\ {}{\\kappa}_u=\\left[-470,430\\right]\\ \\left(\\left[-58,55\\right]\\right)\\\\ {}{\\kappa}_d=\\left[-360,360\\right]\\ \\left(\\left[-26,28\\right]\\right)\\end{array}} $$\\end{document}We show that the simultaneous modification of the Yukawa couplings can dilute the constraints on the trilinear coupling significantly. We perform similar analyses for FCC-hh. We discuss some motivated flavourful new physics scenarios where such an analysis prevails.

Light quark Yukawas in triboson final states

Triple heavy vector boson production, pp → VVV (V = W, Z), has recently been observed for the first time. We propose that precision measurements of this process provide an excellent probe of the first generation light quark Yukawa couplings. Modified quark interactions with the off-shell Higgs in this process lead to a rapid growth of the partonic cross sections with energy, which manifests in an enhanced pT distribution of the final state leptons and quarks. We quantify this effect and estimate the present and future 2σ sensitivity to the up, down, and strange Yukawas. In particular, we find that HL-LHC can reach mathcal{O}(400) sensitivity to the down Yukawa relative to the Standard Model value, improving the current sensitivity in this process by a factor of 10, and which can be further improved to mathcal{O}(30) at FCC-hh. This is competitive with and complementary to constraints from global fits and other on-shell probes of the first generation Yukawas. The triboson sensitivity at HL-LHC corresponds to probing dimension-6 SMEFT operators suppressed by an mathcal{O}(1) TeV scale, similarly to other LHC Higgs probes.

Cancellation in dark matter-nucleon interactions: The role of non-standard-model-like Yukawa couplings

Extensive searches to probe the particle nature of dark matter (DM) have been going on for some decades now but, so far, no conclusive evidence has been found. Among various options, the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) remains one of the prime possibilities as candidates for DM near the TeV scale. Taking a phenomenological view, such null results may be explained for a generic WIMP in a Higgs-portal scenario if we allow the light-quark Yukawa couplings to assume non-Standard Model (non-SM)-like values. This follows from a cancellation among different terms in the DM-nucleon scattering which can, in turn, lead to a vanishingly small direct-detection cross section. It might also lead to isospin violation in the DM-nucleon scattering. Such non-SM values of light-quark Yukawa couplings may be probed in the high luminosity run of the LHC.

Bounds on CP-violating Higgs-gluon interactions: the case of vanishing light-quark Yukawa couplings

We investigate CP-violating interactions involving the Higgs boson and gluons within an effective field theory approach, focusing on the specific class of new-physics scenarios where the Yukawa couplings of light quarks are zero or strongly suppressed compared to the standard-model expectations. We compute the contributions of the most relevant higher-dimensional operators of Weinberg type to the electric dipole moment of the neutron (nEDM), which are induced by Feynman diagrams that involve an effective CP-violating Higgs-gluon coupling and top-quark loops. The resulting nEDM sensitivities and prospects are discussed and compared to the existing and expected LHC bounds. We find that future nEDM searches can set non-trivial constraints on CP-violating Higgs-gluon interactions even if the Higgs only couples to the third generation of quarks.

Probing Higgs couplings to light quarks via Higgs pair production

We consider the potential of the Higgs boson pair production process to probe the light quark Yukawa couplings. We show within an effective theory description that the prospects of constraining enhanced first generation light quark Yukawa couplings in Higgs pair production are similar to other methods and channels, due to a coupling of two Higgs bosons to two fermions. Higgs pair production can hence also probe if the Higgs sector couples non-linearly to the light quark generations. For the second generation, we show that by employing charm tagging for the Higgs boson pair decaying to c overline{c} γγ, we can obtain similarly good prospects for measuring the charm Yukawa coupling as in other direct probes.

Universally enhanced light-quarks Yukawa couplings paradigm

We propose that natural TeV-scale new physics (NP) with ${\cal O}(1)$ couplings to the standard model (SM) quarks may lead to a universal enhancement of the Yukawa couplings of all the light quarks, perhaps to a size comparable to that of the SM b-quark Yukawa coupling, i.e., $y_q \sim {\cal O}(y_b^{SM})$ for $q=u,d,c,s$. This scenario is described within an effective field theory (EFT) extension of the SM, for which a potential contribution of certain dimension six effective operators to the light quarks Yukawa couplings is $y_q \sim {\cal O} \left( f \frac{v^2}{\Lambda^2} \right)$, where $v$ is the Higgs vacuum expectation value (VEV), $v=246$ GeV, $\Lambda$ is the typical scale of the underlying heavy NP and $f$ is the corresponding Wilson coefficient which depends on its properties and details. In particular, we study the case of $y_q \sim 0.025 \sim y_b^{SM}$, which is the typical size of the enhanced light-quark Yukawa couplings if the NP scale is around $\Lambda \sim 1.5$ TeV and the NP couplings are natural, i.e., $f \sim {\cal O}(1)$. We also explore this enhanced light quarks Yukawa paradigm in extensions of the SM which contain TeV-scale vector-like quarks and we match them to the specific higher dimensional effective operators in the EFT description. We discuss the constraints on this scenario and the flavor structure of the underlying NP dynamics and suggest some resulting "smoking gun" signals that should be searched for at the LHC, such as multi-Higgs production $pp \to hh,hhh$ and single Higgs production in association with a high $p_T$ jet ($j$) or photon $pp \to hj,h \gamma$ and with a single top-quark $pp \to h t$.

Probing light-quark Yukawa couplings via hadronic event shapes at lepton colliders

We propose a novel idea for probing the Higgs boson couplings through the measurement of hadronic event shape distributions in the decay of the Higgs boson at lepton colliders. The method provides a unique test of the Higgs boson couplings and of QCD effects in the decay of the Higgs boson. It can be used to probe the Yukawa couplings of the light quarks and to further test the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. From a case study for the proposed Circular Electron-Positron Collider, assuming a hypothesis of SM-like theory, light-quark couplings with a strength greater than 9% of the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling in the standard model can be excluded.

Light Quark Yukawa Couplings and the W±h Charge Asymmetry

I review the recent theory progress on possibly measuring the light quark couplings, emphasizing the distinction between direct and indirect measurements. I highlight the importance of the W±h charge asymmetry measurement as a direct probe of enhanced light quark Yukawa couplings. I propose the W±h→ℓ±ℓ±qq′νν final state as a promising channel for measuring the charge asymmetry. This clean, same-sign dilepton final state should reach statistical discovery sensitivity in each W±h charge mode with 300 fb-1 of Large Hadron Collider luminosity, and affords an impressive sub-percent statistical accuracy with the anticipated 3 ab-1 high luminosity upgrade. After accounting for current direct constraints on the total Higgs width, the W±h charge asymmetry could deviate from the Standard Model expectation by tens of percent. The measurement of a non-Standard Model asymmetry would hence provide strong indications of enhanced light quark Yukawa couplings.

Phenomenology of enhanced light quark Yukawa couplings and the W\xb1h charge asymmetry

I propose the measurement of the W±h charge asymmetry as a consistency test for the Standard Model (SM) Higgs, which is sensitive to enhanced Yukawa couplings of the first and second generation quarks. I present a collider analysis for the charge asymmetry in the same-sign lepton final state, pp → W±h → (ℓ±ν) (ℓ±νjj), aimed at discovery significance for the SM W±h production mode in each charge channel with 300 fb−1 of 14 TeV LHC data. Using this decay mode, I estimate the statistical precision on the charge asymmetry should reach 0.4% with 3 ab−1 luminosity, enabling a strong consistency test of the SM Higgs hypothesis. I also discuss direct and indirect constraints on light quark Yukawa couplings from direct and indirect probes of the Higgs width as well as Tevatron and Large Hadron Collider Higgs data. While the main effect from enhanced light quark Yukawa couplings is a rapid increase in the total Higgs width, such effects could be mitigated in a global fit to Higgs couplings, leaving the W±h charge asymmetry as a novel signature to test directly the Higgs couplings to light quarks.

Light quark Yukawa couplings from Higgs kinematics

We show that the normalized Higgs production $p_T$ and $y_h$ distributions are sensitive probes of Higgs couplings to light quarks. For up and/or down quark Yukawa couplings comparable to the SM $b$ quark Yukawa the $\bar u u$ or $\bar d d$ fusion production of the Higgs could lead to appreciable softer $p_T$ distribution than in the SM. The rapidity distribution, on the other hand, becomes more forward. We find that, owing partially to a downward fluctuation, one can derive competitive bounds on the two couplings using ATLAS measurements of normalized $p_T$ distribution at 8\,TeV. With 300 fb${}^{-1}$ at 13\,TeV LHC one could establish flavor non-universality of the Yukawa couplings in the down sector.

Prospects for measuring the Higgs boson coupling to light quarks

We discuss the prospects to probe the light-quark Yukawa couplings to the Higgs boson. The Higgs coupling to the charm quark can be probed both via inclusive and exclusive approaches. On the inclusive frontier, we use our recently proposed method together with published experimental studies for the sensitivity of the Higgs coupling to bottom quarks to find that the high-luminosity LHC can be sensitive to modifications of the charm Yukawa of the order of a few times its standard model (SM) value. We also present a preliminary study of this mode for a 100 TeV hadronic machine (with similar luminosity) and find that the bound can be further improved, possibly within the reach of the expected signal in the SM. On the exclusive frontier, we use the recent ATLAS search for charmonia and photon final state. This study yields the first measurement of the background relevant to these modes. Using this background measurement we project that at the high-luminosity LHC, unless the analysis strategy is changed, the sensitivity of the exclusive final state to the charm Yukawa to the charm Yukawa will be rather poor, of the order of 50 times the SM coupling. We then use a Monte-Carlo study to rescale the above backgrounds to the h->phi gamma case and obtain a much weaker sensitivity to the strange Yukawa, of order of 3000 times the SM value. We briefly speculate what would be required to improve the prospects of the exclusive modes.

Nonstandard Yukawa couplings and Higgs portal dark matter

We study the implications of non-standard Higgs Yukawa couplings to light quarks on Higgs-portal dark matter phenomenology. Saturating the present experimental bounds on up-quark, down-quark, or strange-quark Yukawa couplings, the predicted direct dark matter detection scattering rate can increase by up to four orders of magnitude. The effect on the dark matter annihilation cross section, on the other hand, is subleading unless the dark matter is very light -- a scenario that is already excluded by measurements of the Higgs invisible decay width. We investigate the expected size of corrections in multi-Higgs-doublet models with natural flavor conservation, the type-II two-Higgs-doublet model, the Giudice-Lebedev model of light quark masses, minimal flavor violation new physics models, Randall-Sundrum, and composite Higgs models. We find that an enhancement in the dark matter scattering rate of an order of magnitude is possible. Finally, we point out that a discovery of Higgs-portal dark matter could lead to interesting bounds on the light-quark Yukawa couplings.

Exclusive radiative Higgs decays as probes of light-quark Yukawa couplings

Abstract We present a detailed analysis of the rare exclusive Higgs boson decays into a single vector meson and a photon and investigate the possibility of using these processes to probe the light-quark Yukawa couplings. We work with an effective Lagrangian with modified Higgs couplings to account for possible new-physics effects in a model-independent way. The h → Vγ decay rate is governed by the destructive interference of two amplitudes, one of which involves the Higgs coupling to the quark anti-quark pair inside the vector meson. We derive this amplitude at next-to-leading order in α s using QCD factorization, including the resummation of large logarithmic corrections and accounting for the effects of flavor mixing. The high factorization scale μ ∼ m h ensures that our results are rather insensitive to the hadronic parameters characterizing the light-cone distribution amplitude of the vector meson. The second amplitude arises from the loop-induced effective hγγ * and hγZ * couplings, where the off-shell gauge boson converts into the vector meson. We devise a strategy to eliminate theoretical uncertainties related to this amplitude to almost arbitrary precision. This opens up the possibility to probe for $$ \mathcal{O}(1) $$ O 1 modifications of the c- and b-quark Yukawa couplings and $$ \mathcal{O}(30) $$ O 30 modifications of the s-quark Yukawa coupling in the high-luminosity LHC run. In particular, we show that measurements of the ratios Br(h → Υ(nS)γ)/Br(h → γγ) and $$ \mathrm{B}\mathrm{r}\left(h\to b\overline{b}\right)/\mathrm{B}\mathrm{r}\left(h\to \gamma \gamma \right) $$ B r h → b b ¯ / B r h → γ γ can provide complementary information on the real and imaginary parts of the b-quark Yukawa coupling. More accurate measurements would be possible at a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider.

Higgs boson couplings to quarks with supersymmetric CP and flavor violations

In minimal supersymmetric model (SUSY) with a light Higgs sector, explicit CP violation and most general flavor mixings in the sfermion sector, integration of the superpartners out of the spectrum induces potentially large contributions to the Yukawa couplings of light quarks via those of the heavier ones. These corrections can be sizeable even for moderate values of tanβ, and remain nonvanishing even if all superpartners decouple. When the SUSY breaking scale is close to the electroweak scale, the Higgs exchange effects can compete with the gauge boson and box diagram contributions to rare processes, and their partial cancellations can lead to relaxation of the existing bounds on flavor violation sources. In this case there exist sizeable enhancements in flavor-changing Higgs decays. When the superpartners completely decouple, however, the Higgs mediation becomes the dominant SUSY contribution to rare processes the saturation of which, without a strong suppression of the flavor mixings, prefers large tanβ and certain ranges for the CP-odd phases. The decay rate of the lightest Higgs into light down quarks becomes comparable with that into the bottom quark. Moreover, the Higgs decay into the up quark is significantly enhanced. There are observable implications for rare processes, atomic electric dipole moments, and collider searches for Higgs bosons.

Induced Light-Quark Yukawa Couplings as a Probe of Low-Energy Dynamics in QCD

We examine the heavy-quark-induced Yukawa interaction between light quarks and a light Higgs field, which is facilitated in the chiral limit by the dynamical mass of light quarks anticipated from the chiral-noninvariance of the QCD vacuum. A low-energy estimate of the strong coupling near unity can be obtained from a comparison of the explicit perturbative calculation of the induced Yukawa interaction at zero momentum to a Higgs-low-energy theorem prediction for the same interaction.