Tests of Higgs Boson Couplings at a mu+mu- Collider

We investigate the potential of a muon collider for testing the presence of anomalous Higgs boson couplings. We consider the case of a light (less than $160 GeV$) Higgs boson and study the effects on the Higgs branching ratios and total width, which could be induced by the non standard couplings created by a class of dim=6 $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ gauge invariant operators satisfying the constraints imposed by the present and future hadronic and $e^-e^+$ colliders. For each operator we give the minimal value of the $\mu^+\mu^-$ integrated luminosity needed for the muon collider ($\mu C$) to improve these constraints. Depending on the operator and the Higgs mass, this minimal $\mu C$ luminosity lies between $0.1 fb^{-1}$ and $100 fb^{-1}$.Comment: 18 pages and 4 figures; version to be published in Phys. Rev.D. e-mail: [email protected]

Testing the Higgs boson gluonic couplings at LHC

We study Higgs + jet production at hadron colliders in order to look for new physics residual effects possibly described by the $dim=6$ operators {\O}_{GG} and {\widetilde\O}_{GG} which induce anomalous $Hgg$ and $Hggg$ couplings. Two ways for constraining these operators at LHC may be ~useful. The first is based on the total Higgs boson production rate induced by gluon-gluon fusion, in which the main cause of limitations are due to theoretical uncertainties leading to sensitivities of $|d_G|\simeq 3.\times 10^{-4}$ and $|\widetilde{d}_G|\simeq 1.4\times 10^{-3}$ for the corresponding anomalous couplings, in the mass range 100 GeV \lsim \mh \lsim 2~00 GeV. These results imply sensitivity to new physics scales of 51 and 24 TeV respectively. The second way investigated here concerns the shape of the Higgs transverse momentum; for which the theoretical uncertainties are less severe and the limitations are mainly induced by statistics. A simple analysis, based on the ratio of the number of events at large and low $p_T$ at LHC, leads to similar sensitivities, if only the $H\to \gamma \gamma$ decay mode is used. But the sensitivities can now be improved by a factor 2 to 10, depending on the Higgs mass, if the Higgs decay modes to $WW^*$, $ZZ^*$, $WW$, $ZZ$ are also used.Comment: 23 pages and 7 figures, version to appear in Phys.ReV.D. e-mail: [email protected]

The processes e−e+→γγ,Zγ,ZZe^-e^+\to\gamma\gamma, Z \gamma, ZZ in SM and MSSM

We present the results of a complete analysis of the one loop electroweak corrections to $e^-e^+\to\gamma\gamma, ~Z\gamma, ~ZZ$ in the Standard (SM) and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). A special emphasis is put on the high energy behaviour of the various helicity amplitudes and the way the logarithmic structure is generated. The large magnitude of these effects, which induce striking differences between the SM and MSSM cases at high energies, offers the possibility of making global tests which could check the consistency of these models, and even decide whether any additional new physics is required.Comment: Short version (16 pages and 9 figures) of the paper hep-ph/0207273, to appear in Phy.Rev.D. e-mail: [email protected]

Probing the Weak Boson Sector in γe→Ze\gamma e\rightarrow Ze

We study possible deviations from the standard model in the reaction $\gamma e\rightarrow Ze$ at a 500 GeV $e^+e^-$ collider. As a photon source we use a laser backscattered photon beam. We investigate the most general $\gamma Z\gamma$ and $\gamma ZZ$ vertices including operators up to energy-dimension-six which are Lorentz invariant. These vertices require four extra parameters; two are CP-conserving, $h^\gamma_1$ and $h^Z_1$, and two are CP-violating, $h^\gamma_2$ and $h^Z_2$. We present analytical expressions of the helicity amplitudes for the process $\gamma e\rightarrow Ze$ for arbitrary values of anomalous couplings. Assuming Standard Model values are actually measured we present the allowed region in the ($h^\gamma_1,h^Z_1$) plane at the 90\% confidence level. We then show how the angular correlation of the $Z$ decay products can be used to extract detailed information on the anomalous (especially CP-violating) $\gamma Z\gamma$ and $\gamma ZZ$ couplings.Comment: Latex, 25 pages, 12 figures (not included). One compressed postscript file including all the figures available at ftp://ftp.kek.jp/kek/preprints/TH/TH-420/kekth420.ps.g

Effects of genuine dimension-six Higgs operators

We systematically discuss the consequences of genuine dimension-six Higgs operators. These operators are not subject to stringent constraints from electroweak precision data. However, they can modify the couplings of the Higgs boson to electroweak gauge bosons and, in particular, the Higgs self-interactions. We study the sensitivity to which those couplings can be probed at future \ee linear colliders in the sub-TeV and in the multi-TeV range. We find that for $\sqrt s=500$ GeV with a luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$ the anomalous $WWH$ and $ZZH$ couplings may be probed to about the 0.01 level, and the anomalous $HHH$ coupling to about the 0.1 level.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures; typos corrected and references adde

Anomalous Higgs Couplings

We review the effects of new effective interactions on the Higgs boson phenomenology. New physics in the electroweak bosonic sector is expected to induce additional interactions between the Higgs doublet field and the electroweak gauge bosons leading to anomalous Higgs couplings as well as to anomalous gauge-boson self-interactions. Using a linearly realized $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ invariant effective Lagrangian to describe the bosonic sector of the Standard Model, we review the effects of the new effective interactions on the Higgs boson production rates and decay modes. We summarize the results from searches for the new Higgs signatures induced by the anomalous interactions in order to constrain the scale of new physics in particular at CERN LEP and Fermilab Te vatron colliders.Comment: 35 pages, latex using epsfig.sty psfig.sty and axodraw.sty, 16 postscript figure

New Physics Signatures in Dijets at Hadron Colliders

We show how to detect and disentangle at the upgraded Tevatron and at LHC, the effects of the three purely gluonic $dim=6$ $SU(3)\times SU(2) \times U(1)$ CP-conserving and CP-violating gauge invariant operators \ol{\O}_{DG}, \O_G and \wtil{\O}_{G}. These operators are inevitably generated by New Physics (NP), if the heavy particles responsible for it are coloured. We establish the relations between their coupling constants and the corresponding NP scales defined through the unitarity relations. We then study the sensitivity and limits obtainable through production processes involving one or two jets, and express these limits in terms of the NP scales implied by unitarity. A detailed comparison with the results of the studies of the analogous electroweak operators, is also made.Comment: 19 pages and 3 figures, version to appear in Phys.ReV.D. e-mail: [email protected]

Hunting a light CP-violating Higgs via diffraction at the LHC

We study the central diffractive production of the (three neutral) Higgs bosons, with a rapidity gap on either side, in an MSSM scenario with CP-violation. We consider the bb-bar and tautau-bar decay for the light H_1 boson and the four b-jet final state for the heavy H_2 and H_3 bosons, and discuss the corresponding backgrounds. A direct indication of the existence of CP-violation can come from the observation of either an azimuthal asymmetry in the angular distribution of the tagged forward protons (for the exclusive pp -> p+H+p process) or of a sin(2phi) contribution in the azimuthal correlation between the transverse energy flows in the proton fragmentation regions for the process with the diffractive dissociation of both incoming protons (pp -> X+H+Y). We emphasise the advantage of reactions with the rapidity gaps (that is production by the pomeron-pomeron fusion) to probe CP parity and to determine the quantum numbers of the produced central object.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Progress on a spherical TPC for low energy neutrino detection

The new concept of the spherical TPC aims at relatively large target masses with low threshold and background, keeping an extremely simple and robust operation. Such a device would open the way to detect the neutrino-nucleus interaction, which, although a standard process, remains undetected due to the low energy of the neutrino-induced nuclear recoils. The progress in the development of the fist 1 m$^3$ prototype at Saclay is presented. Other physics goals of such a device could include supernova detection, low energy neutrino oscillations and study of non-standard properties of the neutrino, among others.Comment: 3 pages, talk given at the 9th Workshop on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics, Zaragoza, September 10-1

Anomalously interacting new extra vector bosons and their first LHC constraints

In this review phenomenological consequences of the Standard Model extension by means of new spin-1 chiral fields with the internal quantum numbers of the electroweak Higgs doublets are summarized. The prospects for resonance production and detection of the chiral vector $Z^*$ and $W^{*\pm}$ bosons at the LHC energies are considered. The $Z^*$ boson can be observed as a Breit-Wigner resonance peak in the invariant dilepton mass distributions in the same way as the well-known extra gauge $Z'$ bosons. However, the $Z^*$ bosons have unique signatures in transverse momentum, angular and pseudorapidity distributions of the final leptons, which allow one to distinguish them from other heavy neutral resonances. In 2010, with 40 pb$^{-1}$ of the LHC proton-proton data at the energy 7 TeV, the ATLAS detector was used to search for narrow resonances in the invariant mass spectrum of $e^+e^-$ and $\mu^+\mu^-$ final states and high-mass charged states decaying to a charged lepton and a neutrino. No statistically significant excess above the Standard Model expectation was observed. The exclusion mass limits of 1.15 TeV$/c^2$ and 1.35 TeV$/c^2$ were obtained for the chiral neutral $Z^*$ and charged $W^*$ bosons, respectively. These are the first direct limits on the $W^*$ and $Z^*$ boson production. For almost all currently considered exotic models the relevant signal is expected in the central dijet rapidity region. On the contrary, the chiral bosons do not contribute to this region but produce an excess of dijet events far away from it. For these bosons the appropriate kinematic restrictions lead to a dip in the centrality ratio distribution over the dijet invariant mass instead of a bump expected in the most exotic models.Comment: 24 pages, 34 figure, based on talk given by V.A.Bednyakov at 15th Lomonosov conference, 22.08.201