Unravelling $t\bar{t}h$ via the matrix element method
Pierre Artoisenet, Priscila de Aquino, Fabio Maltoni, Olivier Mattelaer
TL;DR
The paper addresses measuring ttH production to probe the top Yukawa coupling. It applies the matrix element method, with weights computed as $P(x|\alpha) = (1/\sigma_\alpha) \int d\Phi(y) |M_\alpha|^2(y) W(x,y)$, using MadWeight to handle the ttH final state. The authors demonstrate that MEM improves discrimination for both single- and di-lepton Higgs final states, with the di-lepton channel becoming competitive at moderate luminosities. This work proves the feasibility of MEM for complex LHC final states and suggests further refinements and applications to additional channels and coupling structure studies.
Abstract
Associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-antitop pair is a key channel to gather further information on the nature of the newly discovered boson at the LHC. Experimentally, however, its observation is very challenging due to the combination of small rates, difficult multi-jet final states and overwhelming backgrounds. In the Standard Model the largest number of events is expected when h->bb, giving rise to a WWbbbb signature, deluged in tt+jets. A promising strategy to improve the sensitivity is to maximally exploit the theoretical information on the signal and background processes by means of the matrix element method. We show how, despite the complexity of the final state, the method can be efficiently applied to discriminate the signal against combinatorial and tt+jets backgrounds. Remarkably, we find that a moderate integrated luminosity in the next LHC run will be enough to make the signature involving both W's decaying leptonically as sensitive as the single-lepton one.