Single-forward-jet tagging and central-jet vetoing to identify the leptonic WW decay mode of a heavy Higgs boson

Discriminating between Higgs Production Mechanisms via Jet Charge at the LHC

Discriminating between Higgs production mechanisms can play a crucial role in determining the couplings of Higgs to gauge bosons, probing the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking. We propose a novel method to distinguish the Higgs production mechanisms at the LHC by utilizing the jet charge asymmetry of the two leading forward jets in Higgs plus two jets production. This novel observable provides a way to disentangle the W fusion from the Z fusion and gluon fusion processes for the first time, due to the electric charge correlation of the two leading jets in the events. We show that the Higgs couplings to gauge bosons can be well constrained, and its conclusion does not depend on the other possible new physics effects which modify the Higgs total or partial width. We also discuss the complementary roles between the proposed jet charge asymmetry measurement and the Higgs signal strength measurements at the high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) in determining the Higgs couplings.

Understanding jet scaling and jet vetos in Higgs searches

Jet counting and jet vetos are crucial analysis tools for many LHC searches. We can understand their properties from the distribution of the exclusive number of jets. LHC processes tend to show either a distinct staircase scaling or a Poisson scaling, depending on kinematic cuts. We illustrate our approach in a detailed study of jets in weak boson fusion Higgs production.