Extending the Higgs Boson Reach at the Upgraded Fermilab Tevatron

Abstract

We study the observability for a Standard Model-like Higgs boson at an upgraded Tevatron via the modes $p \bar p \to gg \to h \to \ww \to \ljj$ and $\ll$. We find that with c. m. energy of 2 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 30 fb$^{-1}$ the signal may be observable for the mass range of $135 {\gev} \lsim \mh \lsim 180$ GeV at a $3-5σ$ statistical level. We conclude that the upgraded Tevatron may have the potential to detect a SM-like Higgs boson in the mass range from the LEP2 reach to 180 GeV.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: The Higgs-boson production cross-section via the gluon-fusion process versus $m_h$ at the $2$ TeV Tevatron. The $h\to W^*W^*$ (dashes) and $Z^*Z^*$ (dots) channels and various subsequent decay modes are also depicted.
• Figure 2: The cluster transverse mass distributions for $\ell{\bar{\nu}}{\bar{\ell}}\nu$ mode (a) for the signal $m_h^{}=140,\ 160$ and 180 GeV and the leading SM backgrounds with cuts (\ref{['basic']}) and (\ref{['phi']}). With further selective cuts, we show the event rates in (b) for SM background (solid) and background plus signal (dashes) for $m_h^{}=160$ GeV. The statistical error bars are also indicated on the background curve in (b).
• Figure 3: The integrated luminosity needed to reach $3\sigma$ and $5\sigma$ statistical significance versus $m_h$. The dotted and dashed lines correspond to the $\ell\nu jj$ and $\ell{\bar{\nu}}{\bar{\ell}}\nu$ modes respectively. The solid lines are the (quadratically) combined results.