Search for Higgs bosons produced in association with a high-energy photon via vector-boson fusion and decaying to a pair of b-quarks in the ATLAS detector
Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, vol.877, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Volume: 877
- Publication Date: 2026
- Doi Number: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140279
- Journal Name: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
- Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Chemical Abstracts Core, INSPEC, MathSciNet, zbMATH, Directory of Open Access Journals
- Keywords: ATLAS experiment, Higgs boson, Higgs decay to bottom quarks, Higgs plus photon production, Large Hadron Collider, Vector boson fusion
- Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC) Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
A search for Standard Model Higgs bosons produced in association with a high-energy photon and decaying to bb¯ is performed using 133 fb−1 of s=13 TeV pp collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The photon requirement reduces the multijet background, and the H→bb¯ decay is the dominant decay mode. Event selection requirements target events produced by vector-boson fusion, the dominant production mode in this channel. Several improvements enhance the search sensitivity compared to previous measurements. These improvements include better background modelling and characterization, the use of a neural-network classifier, and an updated signal extraction strategy adopting a direct binned-likelihood fit to the classifier output. With these improvements, the Higgs boson signal strength is measured to be 0.2 ± 0.7 relative to the Standard Model prediction. This corresponds to an observed significance of 0.3 standard deviations, compared to an expectation of 1.5 standard deviations assuming the Standard Model.