Observability of MSSM Higgs bosons via sparticle decay modes in CMS

We discuss the possibilities to observe the decays of heavy SUSY Higgs bosons into supersymmetric particles at the LHC. Such an observation would be of interest either in a discovery search if sparticle modes are the dominant ones, or in a study of additional decay modes, bringing information on the SUSY scenario potentially at work. We will focus on the most promising channel where the heavy neutral Higgses decay into a pair of next-to-lightest neutralinos, followed by their decay into two leptons and the LSP, thus leading to four isolated leptons + missing E_T as the main final state signature. A study with the CMS detector shows that the background (SM + SUSY) can be sufficiently suppressed and that in the mass region between m_A = 230 and 450 GeV, for low and intermediate values of tan beta, the signal would be visible provided neutralinos and sleptons are light enough.Comment: 14 pages, 20 figure

Search for SUSY in (Leptons +) Jets + E_T^miss final states

We study the observability of the squarks and gluinos in CMS at LHC. Classical E_T^miss + jets final state as well as a number of additional multilepton signatures (0 leptons, 1 lepton, 2 leptons of the same sign, 2 leptons of the opposite sign and 3 leptons) are investigated . The detection of these sparticles relies on the observation of an excess of events over Standard Model background expectations. The study is made in the framework of a minimal SU(5) mSUGRA model as a function of m_0, m_1/2 for 4 sets of model parameters : tan(beta) = 2 or 35 and sign(mu) = +/- 1 and for fixed value of A_0 = 0. The CMS detector response is modelled using CMSJET 4.51 fast MC code (non-GEANT). The results obtained are presented as 5 sigma detection contours in the m_0, m_1/2 planes and with optimized selection cuts in various regions of the parameter space. The result of these investigations is that with integrated luminosity L=10^5 pb^-1 the squark and gluino mass reach is about 2.5 TeV and covers most of the interesting parts of parameter space according to neutralino relic density expectations. The influence of signal and background cross-section uncertainties on the reach contours is estimated. The effect of pile-up on signal and background is also discussed. This effect is found to be insignificant for E_T^miss and single lepton signatures, whilst only a minor deterioration is seen for multilepton final states.Comment: 28 pages, 28 figure

GARCON - Genetic Algorithm for Rectangular Cuts OptimizatioN.

We will present Genetic Algorithm for Rectangular Cuts OptimizatioN (GARCON) program and demonstrate its functionality on a simple HEP analysis example. The program automatically performs rectangular cuts optimization and verification for stability in a multi-dimensional cuts phase space. The program has been successfully used by a number of different analyses presented in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS collaboration) Physics Technical Design Report (Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN, Geneva, Switzerland), corresponding results are also published in a number of papers in 2006

Higgs Boson Discovery Potential of LHC in the Channel pp→γγ+jetpp \to\gamma\gamma+jet

We discuss the SM Higgs discovery potential of LHC in the reaction $pp\to H+ jet\to\gamma\gamma+jet$ when the jet is observed at sufficiently high $E_t$ to be reliably identified. We conclude that this channel gives promising discovery possibilities for the Higgs boson mass range 100-140 GeV, during LHC operation at a low luminosity. With 30 fb$^{-1}$ of accumulated data and for $M_H=120$ GeV about 100 signal events could be observed with the number of background events larger by a factor of 2 only, showing a signal significance $S/\sqrt{B}\sim 7$. We use the difference of distributions in the partonic subprocess energy $\sqrt{\hat s}$ for the signal and background for a better separation of the signal.Comment: 15 pages including 6 figures, LaTeX, use epsfig.sty. To appear in Phys.Lett.B. In this replacement minor LaTeX improvements are mad

The Road Towards the ILC: Higgs, Top/QCD, Loops

The International Linear e+e- Collider (ILC) could go into operation in the second half of the upcoming decade. Experimental analyses and theory calculations for the physics at the ILC are currently performed. We review recent progress, as presented at the LCWS06 in Bangalore, India, in the fields of Higgs boson physics and top/QCD. Also the area of loop calculations, necessary to achieve the required theory precision, is included.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Plenary talk given at the LCWS06 March 2006, Bangalore, India. Top part slightly enlarged, references adde

The process gg -> WW as a background to the Higgs signal at the LHC

The production of W pairs from the one-loop gluon fusion process is studied. Formulas are presented for the helicity amplitudes keeping the top mass finite, but all other quark masses zero. The correlations among the leptons coming from the W bosons are kept. The contribution of this background to the Higgs boson search in the WW decay mode at the LHC is estimated by applying the cuts foreseen in experimental searches using the PYTHIA Monte Carlo program. Kinematic distributions for the final state leptons are compared to those of the Higgs boson signal and of the q qbar -> WW background. After applying final cuts, the gg background is found to be large, at the level of 35% of the q qbar background.The characteristics of the gg background are very similar to those of the signal. Therefore, an experimental normalization of this background component appears to be very difficult and the uncertainty must largely be determined by theory. As a result, the significance of a Higgs signal in the gg -> H -> WW mode at the LHC is reduced.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figure

MSSM Higgs bosons associated with high-pT jets at hadron colliders

The cross section for the production of the lightest neutral Higgs boson in association with a high-pT hadronic jet, calculated in the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), is presented. The expectations for the hadronic cross section at the Large Hadron Collider are discussed using reasonable kinematical cuts. In particular the contributions from superpartner loops to the cross section and their dependence on the parameters of the MSSM are investigated and found to be significant. Comparisons show that the production rate for h0 + jet in the MSSM can differ widely from the corresponding standard-model prediction.Comment: 20 page

Giant QCD K-factors beyond NLO

Hadronic observables in Z+jet events can be subject to large NLO corrections at TeV scales, with K-factors that even reach values of order 50 in some cases. We develop a method, LoopSim, by which approximate NNLO predictions can be obtained for such observables, supplementing NLO Z+jet and NLO Z+2-jet results with a unitarity-based approximation for missing higher loop terms. We first test the method against known NNLO results for Drell-Yan lepton pt spectra. We then show our approximate NNLO results for the Z+jet observables. Finally we examine whether the LoopSim method can provide useful information even in cases without giant K-factors, with results for observables in dijet events that can be compared to early LHC data.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures; v2 includes additional reference