Higgs Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

In this talk I will begin by summarising the importance of the Higgs physics studies at the LHC. I will then give a short description of the pre-LHC constraints on the Higgs mass and the theoretical predictions for the LHC along with a discussion of the current experimental results, ending with prospects in the near future at the LHC. In addition to the material covered in the presented talk, I have included in the writeup, a critical appraisal of the theoretical uncertainties in the Higgs cross-sections at the Tevatron as well as a discussion of the recent experimental results from the LHC which have become available since the time of the workshop.Comment: LateX, 12 figures, 15 pages, Presented at the XIth Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology, 2010, Ahmedabad, Indi

Probing top charged-Higgs production using top polarization at the Large Hadron Collider

We study single top production in association with a charged Higgs in the type II two Higgs doublet model at the Large Hadron Collider. The polarization of the top, reflected in the angular distributions of its decay products, can be a sensitive probe of new physics in its production. We present theoretically expected polarizations of the top for top charged-Higgs production, which is significantly different from that in the closely related process of t-W production in the Standard Model. We then show that an azimuthal symmetry, constructed from the decay lepton angular distribution in the laboratory frame, is a sensitive probe of top polarization and can be used to constrain parameters involved in top charged-Higgs production.Comment: 22 pages, 18 Figures, Discussions about backgrounds and NLO corrections added, figures modified, references added, Version published in JHE

Probing anomalous tbW couplings in single-top production using top polarization at the Large Hadron Collider

We study the sensitivity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to anomalous tbW couplings in single-top production in association with a W^- boson followed by semileptonic decay of the top. We calculate top polarization and the effects of these anomalous couplings to it at two centre-of-mass (cm) energies of 7 TeV and 14 TeV. As a measure of top polarization, we look at various laboratory frame distributions of its decay products, viz., lepton angular and energy distributions and b-quark angular distributions, without requiring reconstruction of the rest frame of the top, and study the effect of anomalous couplings on these distributions. We construct certain asymmetries to study the sensitivity of these distributions to anomalous tbW couplings. We find that 1\sigma limits on real and imaginary parts of the dominant anomalous coupling Ref_{2R} which may be obtained by utilizing these asymmetries at the LHC with cm energy of 14 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 10 fb^{-1} will be significantly better than the expectations from direct measurements of cross sections and some other variables at the LHC and over an order of magnitude better than the indirect limits.Comment: 25 pages, 34 figure

Dijet resonances, widths and all that

The search for heavy resonances in the dijet channel is part of the on-going physics programme, both at the Tevatron and at the LHC. Lower limits have been placed on the masses of dijet resonances predicted in a wide variety of models. However, across experiments, the search strategy assumes that the effect of the new particles is well-approximated by on-shell production and subsequent decay into a pair of jets. We examine the impact of off-shell effects on such searches, particularly for strongly interacting resonances.Comment: Version published in JHE

Does the `Higgs' have Spin Zero?

The Higgs boson is predicted to have spin zero. The ATLAS and CMS experiments have recently reported of an excess of events with mass ~ 125 GeV that has some of the characteristics expected for a Higgs boson. We address the questions whether there is already any evidence that this excess has spin zero, and how this possibility could be confirmed in the near future. The excess observed in the gamma gamma final state could not have spin one, leaving zero and two as open possibilities. We calculate the angular distribution of gamma gamma pairs from the decays of a spin-two boson produced in gluon-gluon collisions, showing that is unique and distinct from the spin-zero case. We also calculate the distributions for lepton pairs that would be produced in the W W* decays of a spin-two boson, which are very different from those in Higgs decays, and note that the kinematics of the event selection used to produce the excess observed in the W W* final state have reduced efficiency for spin two.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, Version accepted for publication in JHEP, includes additional plots of dilepton mass distribution

A Fast Track towards the `Higgs' Spin and Parity

The LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS have discovered a new boson that resembles the long-sought Higgs boson: it cannot have spin one, and has couplings to other particles that increase with their masses, but the spin and parity remain to be determined. We show here that the `Higgs' + gauge boson invariant-mass distribution in `Higgs'-strahlung events at the Tevatron or the LHC would be very different under the J^P = 0+, 0- and 2+ hypotheses, and could provide a fast-track indicator of the `Higgs' spin and parity. Our analysis is based on simulations of the experimental event selections and cuts using PYTHIA and Delphes, and incorporates statistical samples of `toy' experiments.Comment: 18 pages, 9 pdf figure

Learning Interpretable Rules for Multi-label Classification

Multi-label classification (MLC) is a supervised learning problem in which, contrary to standard multiclass classification, an instance can be associated with several class labels simultaneously. In this chapter, we advocate a rule-based approach to multi-label classification. Rule learning algorithms are often employed when one is not only interested in accurate predictions, but also requires an interpretable theory that can be understood, analyzed, and qualitatively evaluated by domain experts. Ideally, by revealing patterns and regularities contained in the data, a rule-based theory yields new insights in the application domain. Recently, several authors have started to investigate how rule-based models can be used for modeling multi-label data. Discussing this task in detail, we highlight some of the problems that make rule learning considerably more challenging for MLC than for conventional classification. While mainly focusing on our own previous work, we also provide a short overview of related work in this area.Comment: Preprint version. To appear in: Explainable and Interpretable Models in Computer Vision and Machine Learning. The Springer Series on Challenges in Machine Learning. Springer (2018). See http://www.ke.tu-darmstadt.de/bibtex/publications/show/3077 for further informatio

The Impact of a 4th Generation on Mixing and CP Violation in the Charm System

We study D0-D0 mixing in the presence of a fourth generation of quarks. In particular, we calculate the size of the allowed CP violation which is found at the observable level well beyond anything possible with CKM dynamics. We calculate the semileptonic asymmetry a_SL and the mixing induced CP asymmetry eta_fS_f which are correlated with each other. We also investigate the correlation of eta_fS_f with a number of prominent observables in other mesonic systems like epsilon'/epsilon, Br(K_L -> pi0 nu nu), Br(K+ -> pi+ nu nu), Br(B_s ->mu+ mu-), Br(B_d -> mu+ mu-) and finally S_psi phi in the B_s system. We identify a clear pattern of flavour and CP violation predicted by the SM4 model: While simultaneous large 4G effects in the K and D systems are possible, accompanying large NP effects in the B_d system are disfavoured. However this behaviour is not as pronounced as found for the LHT and RSc models. In contrast to this, sizeable CP violating effects in the B_s system are possible unless extreme effects in eta_fS_f are found, and Br(B_s ->mu+ mu-) can be strongly enhanced regardless of the situation in the D system. We find that, on the other hand, S_psi phi > 0.2 combined with the measured epsilon'/epsilon significantly diminishes 4G effects within the D system.Comment: 22 pages, 23 figures, v2 (references added

Missing Momentum Reconstruction and Spin Measurements at Hadron Colliders

We study methods for reconstructing the momenta of invisible particles in cascade decay chains at hadron colliders. We focus on scenarios, such as SUSY and UED, in which new physics particles are pair produced. Their subsequent decays lead to two decay chains ending with neutral stable particles escaping detection. Assuming that the masses of the decaying particles are already measured, we obtain the momenta by imposing the mass-shell constraints. Using this information, we develop techniques of determining spins of particles in theories beyond the standard model. Unlike the methods relying on Lorentz invariant variables, this method can be used to determine the spin of the particle which initiates the decay chain. We present two complementary ways of applying our method by using more inclusive variables relying on kinematic information from one decay chain, as well as constructing correlation variables based on the kinematics of both decay chains in the same event.Comment: Version to appear in JHE

Improving the sensitivity of Higgs boson searches in the golden channel

Leptonic decays of the Higgs boson in the ZZ* channel yield what is known as the golden channel due to its clean signature and good total invariant mass resolution. In addition, the full kinematic distribution of the decay products can be reconstructed, which, nonetheless, is not taken into account in traditional search strategy relying only on measurements of the total invariant mass. In this work we implement a type of multivariate analysis known as the matrix element method, which exploits differences in the full production and decay matrix elements between the Higgs boson and the dominant irreducible background from q bar{q} -> ZZ*. Analytic expressions of the differential distributions for both the signal and the background are also presented. We perform a study for the Large Hadron Collider at sqrt{s}=7 TeV for Higgs masses between 175 and 350 GeV. We find that, with an integrated luminosity of 2.5 fb^-1 or higher, improvements in the order of 10 - 20 % could be obtained for both discovery significance and exclusion limits in the high mass region, where the differences in the angular correlations between signal and background are most pronounced.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures. v2: Minus signs in definitions of angles corrected. Typos fixed. Reference added. Cosmetic changes to Figure 4. Additional sentence added for clarificatio