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Diffractive Higgs Production from Intrinsic Heavy Flavors in the Proton

Stanley J. Brodsky, Boris Kopeliovich, Ivan Schmidt, Jacques Soffer

TL;DR

The paper proposes a novel mechanism for exclusive diffractive Higgs production in proton-proton collisions by exploiting intrinsic heavy-quark Fock components in the proton, which carry large light-cone momentum fractions and can coalesce into a Higgs in the projectile fragmentation region. Using a light-cone dipole formalism with two-gluon exchange and unintegrated gluon densities, it derives cross sections for pp → p H p that depend on the intrinsic charm, bottom, and top content, and analyzes both nonperturbative and perturbative origins of these components. The work details the expected Higgs momentum fraction distributions, energy dependence, and absorptive corrections, showing a potential rise with energy at accessible scales but eventual damping at asymptotic energies. It also discusses alternative production channels, nuclear effects, and experimental prospects, arguing for measurements of high-x heavy-flavor structure functions and forward-diffractive Higgs signals to test the intrinsic heavy flavor hypothesis and the proposed mechanism.

Abstract

We propose a novel mechanism for exclusive diffractive Higgs production $pp \to p H p $ in which the Higgs boson carries a significant fraction of the projectile proton momentum. This mechanism will provide a clear experimental signal for Higgs production due to the small background in this kinematic region. The key assumption underlying our analysis is the presence of intrinsic heavy flavor components of the proton bound state, whose existence at high light-cone momentum fraction $x$ has growing experimental and theoretical support. We also discuss the implications of this picture for exclusive diffractive quarkonium and other channels.

Diffractive Higgs Production from Intrinsic Heavy Flavors in the Proton

TL;DR

The paper proposes a novel mechanism for exclusive diffractive Higgs production in proton-proton collisions by exploiting intrinsic heavy-quark Fock components in the proton, which carry large light-cone momentum fractions and can coalesce into a Higgs in the projectile fragmentation region. Using a light-cone dipole formalism with two-gluon exchange and unintegrated gluon densities, it derives cross sections for pp → p H p that depend on the intrinsic charm, bottom, and top content, and analyzes both nonperturbative and perturbative origins of these components. The work details the expected Higgs momentum fraction distributions, energy dependence, and absorptive corrections, showing a potential rise with energy at accessible scales but eventual damping at asymptotic energies. It also discusses alternative production channels, nuclear effects, and experimental prospects, arguing for measurements of high-x heavy-flavor structure functions and forward-diffractive Higgs signals to test the intrinsic heavy flavor hypothesis and the proposed mechanism.

Abstract

We propose a novel mechanism for exclusive diffractive Higgs production in which the Higgs boson carries a significant fraction of the projectile proton momentum. This mechanism will provide a clear experimental signal for Higgs production due to the small background in this kinematic region. The key assumption underlying our analysis is the presence of intrinsic heavy flavor components of the proton bound state, whose existence at high light-cone momentum fraction has growing experimental and theoretical support. We also discuss the implications of this picture for exclusive diffractive quarkonium and other channels.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 14 sections, 46 equations, 5 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Intrinsic Heavy Quarks
  3. Relevant Experimental Facts
  4. Intrinsic Heavy Quarks and Exclusive Diffractive Production
  5. The cross section
  6. Feynman $x^H_F$ distribution of Higgs particles
  7. Nonperturbative IC
  8. Perturbative intrinsic heavy flavors
  9. Energy dependence
  10. Absorptive corrections
  11. Further possibilities to get a larger cross section
  12. Direct production of Higgs from a colorless IQ
  13. Nuclear enhancement
  14. Conclusions

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: The exclusive diffractive production of $J/\psi, \chi_c, \Upsilon,\chi_b, Z^{0} ~\hbox{or}~ H$, the Standard Model Higgs.
  • Figure 2: The two-gluon exchange diagram for the Higgs exclusive production
  • Figure 3: The distribution of produced Higgs particles over the fraction of the proton beam momentum. The dotted, dashed and solid curves correspond to Higgs production from nonperturbative IC ($\beta=1$), perturbative IC ($\beta=0$) and IT, respectively.
  • Figure 4: The cross section of the reaction $pp\to Hp+p$ as function of the Higgs mass. Contributions of IC (dashed) of IB (dotted) and IT (solid).
  • Figure 5: Higgs production via Pomeron exchange