Heavy Higgs signal-background interference in gg --> VV in the Standard Model plus real singlet
Abstract
For the Standard Model extended with a real scalar singlet field, the modification of the heavy Higgs signal due to interference with the continuum background and the off-shell light Higgs contribution is studied for gg --> ZZ, WW --> 4 lepton processes at the Large Hadron Collider. Interference effects can range from O(10%) to O(1) effects for integrated cross sections. Despite a strong cancellation between the heavy Higgs-continuum and the heavy Higgs-light Higgs interference, the full interference is clearly non-negligible and modifies the heavy Higgs line shape. A |M_VV - M_h2| < Gamma_h2 cut mitigates interference effects to O(10%) or less. A public program that allows to simulate the full interference is presented.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.04113,
title = {Heavy Higgs signal-background interference in gg --> VV in the Standard Model plus real singlet},
author = {Nikolas Kauer and Claire O'Brien},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.04113},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
22 pages, 15 figures, 9 tables; added results and references, improved discussion, corrected v2 results (heavy top approximation was inadvertently active, results deviate by less than 5%), conclusions unchanged, updated gg2VV code, version to appear in EPJC