Anomalous gauge couplings of the Higgs boson at the LHC II: Study of additional backgrounds in semileptonic mode of WW scatterings

Yong-Hui Qi, Yu-Ping Kuang

Published 2010-09-30, updated 2010-10-02Version 2

Searching for the Higgs boson is of first priority in LHC experiments. Once a Higgs candidate is found, we then need to know whether it is the standard model (SM) Higgs boson or a Higgs boson in new physics beyond the SM. So far we do not know what model of new physics will actually reflect the property of the nature. A model-independent way of measuring the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson will provide a no-lose study, i.e., if we find nonvanishing anomalous couplings (deviation from the SM couplings), we can conclude that it is a new physics effect. In a previous paper \cite{QKLZ09}, we gave a hadron level study of a model-independent test of the anomalous gauge couplings of the Higgs boson at the 14 TeV LHC via the semileptonic mode of weak-boson scatterings $pp\to W^+W^\pm j^f_1 j^f_2\to l^+\nu^{}_lj^{}_1j^{}_2j^f_1j^f_2$, and the conclusion is that, with certain kinematical cuts imposed, the measurement can start for an integrated luminosity of 50 fb$^{-1}$. For higher integrated luminosity, say 100 fb$^{-1}$, the two main anomalous coupling constants $f^{}_{WW}/\Lambda^2$ and $f^{}_W/\Lambda^2$ can be determined separately which may provide a clue for figuring out the underlying theory of new physics.