Feasibility of Searches for a Higgs Boson using H->WW->ll+MET and High PT Jets at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This study investigates Higgs boson searches in H→WW decays at the Tevatron with associated high‑P_T jets. It proposes three orthogonal, cut‑based selections targeting jet kinematics to improve signal-to-background relative to inclusive analyses, using LO matrix elements and fast detector simulation. For MH around 165 GeV with 5 fb⁻¹, they estimate a 95% CL exclusion on σ×BR(H→WW) near 1.6× the SM expectation and show that combining these channels with existing analyses could substantially enhance Tevatron sensitivity, though the results are conservative and could benefit from NLO corrections and multivariate methods.

Abstract

The sensitivity of Standard Model Higgs boson searches at the Tevatron experiments with a mass 135<MH<190 GeV using the channel H->WW->ll+MET (l=e,mu) is discussed. Three new event selections involving Higgs in association with one or two high PT hadronic jets are discussed. Using Leading Order Matrix Elements and a conservative cut-based analysis a 95% confidence level exclusion on sigmaxBR(H->WW), 1.6 times larger than that predicted by the Standard Model for MH=165 GeV, may be achieved with 5fb-1 of integrated luminosity. By combining these three event selections with the existing analysis, the sensitivity of CDF and D0 could improve significantly.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: Leading diagrams for the Higgs production in association with jets at the Tevatron: $VH, V=Z,W^\pm (V\rightarrow q\overline{q})$ (left), Gluon-Gluon fusion (center) and Vector Boson Fusion (right).
• Figure 2: The pseudorapidity of the leading jet for signal and background processes after the application of preselection cuts presented in Section \ref{['sec:preselection']}. The solid, dashed and dotted dashed light colored histograms correspond to gluon-gluon fusion, VBF and $VH$ signal production, respectively. The solid and dashed black histograms correspond to $t\overline{t}$ and $WW+jets$, respectively. Histograms are normalized to unity.
• Figure 3: The pseudorapidity difference of the two leading jets for signal and background processes after the application of preselection cuts presented in Section \ref{['sec:preselection']}. The solid, dashed light colored histograms correspond to gluon-gluon fusion, VBF signal production, respectively. The solid and dashed black histograms correspond to $t\overline{t}$ and $WW+jets$, respectively. Histograms are normalized to unity.
• Figure 4: The invariant mass of the two leading jets after the application of preselection cuts presented in Section \ref{['sec:preselection']}. The solid, dashed and dotted dashed light colored histograms correspond to gluon-gluon fusion, VBF and $VH$ signal production, respectively. The solid and dashed black histograms correspond to $t\overline{t}$ and $WW+jets$, respectively. Histograms are normalized to unity.
• Figure 5: Expected $95\,\%$ confidence level limit expressed in terms of the ratio of $\sigma\times\hbox{$\mathcal{B}$}$ over the corresponding value in the Standard Model. Results are given as function of the Higgs mass (in ${\rm Ge}{\rm V}/c^2$) with $5\,$fb$^{-1}$ and $10\,$fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity for two experiments combined.