Associated production of top quarks with the Higgs boson at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

Georgios Konstantinos Krintiras

Published 2017-12-17Version 1

The top quark, being the heaviest elementary fermion known in the Standard model, has the largest coupling to the Higgs boson. The associated production of top quarks with the Higgs boson, either in pairs (t$\bar{\rm{t}}$H) or singly (tH), provides direct experimental access to the top-Higgs coupling $y_{\rm{t}}$. The t$\bar{\rm{t}}$H (tH) production mode, while proceeding at a rate of about 100 (1000) times smaller than gluon fusion, bears a highly distinctive experimental signature, which includes leptons and/or jets from the decay of the two (single) top quarks. The latest results of ttH searches at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to $35.9\ \rm{fb}^{-1}$ as collected from CMS are shown and tantalizing evidence is found for measuring this crucial process with sufficient precision. However, higher precision data set is needed in order to confirm or disprove the previous observed excess. Initial searches for tH production mode at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV achieve comparable sensitivity to that of the Run 1 analysis.