Searching for H -> gamma gamma in weak boson fusion at the LHC

Weak boson fusion is a copious source of intermediate mass Higgs bosons at the LHC, with a rate sigma*B(H -> gamma gamma) of up to 9 fb. The additional very energetic forward jets in these events provide for a unique signature. A parton level analysis of the dominant backgrounds demonstrates that this channel allows the observation of H -> gamma gamma in a low background environment, with modest luminosity.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Journal of High Energy Physic

QCD corrections to hadronic WWZ production with leptonic decays

Multi-lepton signatures appear in many new physics searches at the Large Hadron Collider. We here consider WWZ production with subsequent leptonic decay of the three vector bosons as a SM source of multi-lepton events. We have calculated the next-to-leading order QCD corrections for the full $p p\to 6$ lepton production cross sections in hadronic collisions. Results have been implemented in the form of a flexible parton-level Monte-Carlo program which allows to calculate the QCD corrections for arbitrary distributions and acceptance cuts.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, version published in physics letters

Measurement of Higgs Properties at the LHC

A SM-like Higgs boson can be produced in a variety of channels at the LHC. By combining information from production via gluon fusion and weak boson fusion, various partial widths and the total Higgs boson width can be extracted. Expected accuracies for 200 fb^{-1} of data are in the 10% range.Comment: 6 pages, Revtex (singlespaced), uses epsfig.sty, 1 postscript figure. Talk given at the 35th Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions, Les Arcs, France, March 18-25, 200

Observing H -> W*W* -> e mu pT(miss) in weak boson fusion with dual forward jet tagging at the LHC

Weak boson fusion promises to be a copious source of intermediate mass Standard Model Higgs bosons at the LHC. The additional very energetic forward jets in these events provide for powerful background suppression tools. We analyze the H -> W^(*)W^(*) -> e mu pTmiss decay mode for a Higgs boson mass in the 130-200 GeV range. A parton level analysis of the dominant backgrounds (production of W pairs, tt~ and Z -> tau tau in association with jets) demonstrates that this channel allows the observation of H -> W^(*)W^(*) in a virtually background-free environment, yielding a significant Higgs boson signal with an integrated luminosity of 5 fb^-1 or less. Weak boson fusion achieves a much better signal to background ratio than inclusive H -> e mu pTmiss and is therefore the most promising search channel in the 130-200 GeV mass range.Comment: 13 pages, 4 PS figs; references updated, top-quark backgrounds corrected in table