English

Quantum Tomography and Entanglement in Semi-Leptonic $h\to VV^*$ Decays at Higher Orders

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-04-20 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment Quantum Physics

Abstract

Angular correlations in Higgs decays to electroweak gauge bosons, hZZ,WWh \to ZZ^*, WW^*, provide a powerful probe of both new physics effects and quantum information observables. We present a systematic study of semi-leptonic decays hVV+qqˉh \to V V^* \to \ell^+\ell^- q\bar{q} and ±νqqˉ\ell^\pm \nu_\ell q\bar{q}', including finite final state fermion masses, NLO QCD, and NLO electroweak corrections. We show that finite final state quark masses can induce effects that go beyond the two-qutrit description in more inclusive regimes, while remaining controllable with suitable kinematic selections. QCD corrections lead to modest percent-level shifts, whereas electroweak corrections can significantly modify the angular structure, particularly in the hZZh\to ZZ^* channels. We assess the impact of these effects on the reconstructed density matrix and entanglement measures, finding that, while they modify the angular observables, semi-leptonic channels retain an effective two-qutrit description.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.16218,
  title  = {Quantum Tomography and Entanglement in Semi-Leptonic $h\to VV^*$ Decays at Higher Orders},
  author = {Dorival Gonçalves and Ajay Kaladharan and Alberto Navarro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.16218},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

25 pages, 7 figures and 11 tables