Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 158
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4000-5

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Pseudo-observables in electroweak Higgs production

¹ Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
² INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, 00044, Frascati, Italy
³ Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo, Zmaja od Bosne 33-35, 71000, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

^* e-mail: gino.isidori@lnf.infn.it

Received: 7 January 2016
Accepted: 2 March 2016
Published online: 18 March 2016

Abstract

We discuss how the leading electroweak Higgs production processes at the LHC, namely vector-boson fusion and Higgs associated production, can be characterized in generic extensions of the Standard Model by a proper set of pseudo-observables (PO). We analyze the symmetry properties of these PO and their relation with the PO set appearing in Higgs decays. We discuss in detail the kinematical studies necessary to extract the production PO from data, and present a first estimate of the LHC sensitivity on these observables in the high-luminosity phase. The impact of QCD corrections and the kinematical studies necessary to test the validity of the momentum expansion at the basis of the PO decomposition are also discussed.