Eur. Phys. J. C 19, 455-461
DOI: 10.1007/s100520100636

Measuring the Higgs branching fraction into two photons at future linear e⁺e^- colliders

E. Boos¹, J.-C. Brient², D.W. Reid³, H.J. Schreiber⁴ and R. Shanidze<sup>5

1</sup>  Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, 119 899 Moscow, Russia
²  Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et des Hautes Energies, Ecole Polytechnique, IN²P³-CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France
³  NIKHEF, Postbus 41882, 1009 DB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
⁴  DESY Zeuthen, 15735 Zeuthen, Germany
⁵  High Energy Physics Institute, Tbilisi State University, 380086 Tbilisi, Georgia

(Received: 6 December 2000 / Revised version: 19 February 2001 / Published online: 23 March 2001 -© Springer-Verlag 2001)

Abstract
We examine the prospects for a measurement of the branching fraction of the decay mode of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a mass of 120 GeV at the future TESLA linear e⁺e^- collider, assuming an integrated luminosity of 1 ab^-1 and centre-of-mass energies of 350 GeV and 500 GeV. A relative uncertainty on BF( ) of 16% can be achieved in unpolarised e⁺e^- collisions at = 500 GeV, while for = 350 GeV the expected precision is slightly poorer. With appropriate initial state polarisations the uncertainty can be improved to 10%. If this measurement is combined with a measurement of the total Higgs width, a precision of 10% on the Higgs boson partial width for the decay mode appears feasible.

© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2001