THAI JOURNAL OF PHYSICS, SERIES 10

TJP 10, 15004 (2014)

Higgs News, updated results on the Nobel prized boson

E.Simili 1,*, B.Asavapibhop 2, N.Suwonjandee 2
1

Particle Physics Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science,

Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
2
Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics, Commission Higher on Education,
Ministry of Education, Bangkok 10400, Thailand

After over one year from its discovery at the Large Hadron Collider and the award of the
Nobel Prize to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs, more detailed studies of the last member of the
Standard Model are still ongoing. Both the ATLAS and the CMS collaborations have refined their
Higgs boson analyses over all proton-proton collisions collected during the two years run of the
LHC (2011 and 2012). Most of the properties of the Higgs boson have been precisely measured
from its bosonic and also fermionic decay channels, such as mass, spin-parity, decay width and
coupling to other Standard Model particles. Results, so far, have confirmed that the observed
boson is the quantum of a scalar field with positive parity, which couples directly to Z and W, and
to other particles proportionally to their mass, exactly as predicted half a century ago. These latest
results are presented, together with the status of ongoing searches at the two major experimental
collaborations, ATLAS and CMS.
Keywords: Higgs Boson, LHC, CMS, ATLAS, Standard Model.

1. INTRODUCTION
The long sought Higgs boson, theorized in 1964 [1,2],
was observed in 2012 by the two major LHC experiments,
ATLAS and CMS at CERN, as a new boson resonance
with mass about 125 GeV/c2 [3,4]. More refined studies
have later confirmed that the new boson is indeed
consistent with the Standard Model Higgs, as originally
predicted.
Thanks to this discovery, P.Higgs and F.Englert have
been awarded with the Nobel Prize in physics in 2013:
for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that
contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of
subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed
through the discovery of the predicted fundamental
particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's
Large Hadron Collider [5].
Bosonic decays of the Higgs, such as H, HZZ
and HWW, have been studied in details by both
experimental collaborations, reaching a combined
significance over 10 . The first evidence of direct
fermionic decay of the Higgs boson was published just
recently, from a combination of the two most sensitive
channels: H and VHbb.
In the following, the current status of Higgs boson
studies is summarized, with reference to the most recent
publications by both ATLAS and CMS. After a short
description of the two experiments (Sect.2), the latest
results from bosonic (Sect.3) and fermionic (Sect.4) decay

channels will be presented. In the conclusions (Sect.5) we

will give an outlook about the future of Higgs boson studies
at the LHC.
2. LHC EXPERIMENTS
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN has
operated successfully during the years 2011 and 2012,
providing proton-proton collisions at center of mass energy
of 7 and 8 TeV. During this period, the ATLAS and CMS
detectors have collected over 25 inverse femto-barns of pp
collisions (~5 fb-1 at s = 7 TeV and ~20 fb-1 at s = 8
TeV) in the search for the Higgs boson alone.
1.1 ATLAS
ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) [6] is installed in
its experimental cavern at the interaction point 1 of the
LHC ring. The ATLAS detector consists of a series of
larger
concentric
cylinders,
surrounding
almost
hermetically the interaction point where the two proton
beams collide. The main sub-detector systems,
complementary to each other, include an inner tracker, an
arrangement of electro-magnetic and hadronic calorimeters
and a muon spectrometer.
ATLAS uses two large superconducting magnet
systems to produce an inner solenoidal field (Bsol ~ 2 T)
oriented along the beam axis that surrounds the inner
tracker, and a thoroidal field that extends in an area
surrounding the whole detector (~2620 m2). Due to
technical limitations, the toroidal field (Btor) is not uniform
but varies between 2 and 8 T-m. Figure 1 shows a cutthrough view of the ATLAS detector, a detailed description

* Corresponding author.
Tel: +66 (0)8 60 77 91 90 ; E-mail: pepposub@gmail.com

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2014 Thai Physics

E. Simili, et al.
of the experiment and all sub-detector systems can be
found in the reference [6].

Spin and parity (JP) of the Higgs can also be tested in

bosonic decays, by reconstructing the topology of the
reaction and comparing it to the ones expected for different
JP hypothesis.
From a combined study of all bosonic channels
[9,10,11], the new particles spin and parity are found to be
consistent with those expected for a Standard Model Higgs
boson, i.e., JP=0+.
Figure 3 summarizes the Feynman diagrams of the three
bosonic decay channels considered in this section. These
same channels are explained in more details in the
following.

FIGURE 1. Cut-through view of the ATLAS detector. LHC

beams travel in opposite directions along the central axis of the
cylinder, colliding in the middle of the detector [6].

1.2 CMS
The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS) [7] is
a general purpose detector installed at the interaction point
5 of the LHC. It is composed of concentric shells of
different types of detector, including trackers and
calorimeters, immersed in a strong inner magnetic field
oriented along the beam axis (Bin ~ 3.8 T). An outer
magnetic field in the opposite direction surrounds the muon
spectrometer (Bout ~ 2 T).
The arrangement is optimized to provide good tracking
and particle identification over the full azimuth and a
pseudo-rapidity window || < 2.5. Figure 2 shows an
expanded view of CMS. For a full description of all subdetector systems, see the reference [7].

FIGURE 2. Expanded view of the CMS detector. LHC beams

collide in the middle of the detector [7].

3. HIGGS TO BOSONS
The coupling of the Higgs to Z and W bosons is a direct
test of the Higgs as the mechanism responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model. While the
indirect decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of photons
(H) provide a test of fermion/boson loops in decay
diagrams, and has an excellent invariant mass resolution, as
also HZZ4 (where denotes a light lepton, either an
electron or a muon).
The mass of the new boson has been measured from a
combination of the two channels with the best resolution
(H and HZZ4). The currently accepted value,
published by the PDG, is mH = 125.9 0.4 [8].

FIGURE 3. Bosonic decay channels of the Higgs. From left:

H, HZZ*4, HWW*22.

1.1 H
The Higgs does not couple directly to photons.
However, it can produce a two-photons final state through a
fermionic/bosonic loop decay (see Fig.3). Therefore, the
study of H can place constraints on production and
decay Feynman diagrams, and indirectly tests the coupling
of the Higgs to fermions [12].
The H decay is also sensitive to the spin of the
Higgs boson, which affects the polar angular distribution of
the photons in the Higgs rest frame [9].
1.2 HZZ*4
The Higgs boson does not have sufficient mass to
produce two on-shell Z0 bosons (mH < 2mZ), therefore this
decay proceeds through a virtual state below the Z0 mass
shell, noted as Z0*.
This channel provides several observables that depend
on spin and parity of the Higgs, such as the masses of the
two Z0 resonances (mZ, mZ*) and the angles between their
production and decay planes [9,11].
The so called custodial symmetry of the electro-weak
interaction imposes that the Higgs has the same coupling to
Z and W bosons. This ratio between the two couplings has
been precisely measured by both ATLAS and CMS, and its
value is consistent with unity [11,12].
1.3 HWW*22
As in the previous case, this decay proceeds through a
virtual state below the W+/- mass shell, noted as W*.
A full reconstruction of this channel is impossible to
achieve due to the presence of two neutrinos which escape
undetected. However, this channel is sensitive to spin
correlations, which affects the event topology by shaping
the and pT distributions of the leptons and the missing ET
[9,10]. Furthermore, ATLAS and CMS results on Higgs
couplings and the test of custodial symmetry strongly
rely on this channel [10,11,12].

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3. HIGGS TO FERMIONS
Fermionic decays of the Higgs have been observed just
recently by both ATLAS and CMS collaborations [13,14],
in particular there is strong evidence from the two
channels: H+-, VH()b
b. Figure 4 shows the
Feynman diagrams associated to these decay processes.

FIGURE 4. Fermionic decay channels of the Higgs. Left:

VH()bb, where V is either a Z0 or a W+/-. Right: Hh,
where denotes a leptonic decay of the tau (either e or )
and h a hadronic one.

Results are consistent with the Standard Model

prediction of a Yukawa potential, where the fermionic
couplings are proportional to the fermions masses.
Combining the results of VHbb and H and assuming that
the Higgs boson is produced as expected reveals for the
first time a strong evidence for the direct coupling of the
125 GeV Higgs boson to down-type fermions [13].
Due to the presence of jets (VHbb) and neutrinos (H)
in the final states, the mass resolution of these channels is
about 10% at best.

The VHbb analysis searches for a Higgs boson

produced in association with a Vector boson, either a W+/
or a Z0, where the vector boson decays leptonically while
the Higgs boson decays into bb [15,16]. The leptonic decay
of the vector boson, back to back with two b-tagged jets,
provides an efficient trigger path.
The analysis is done over separated sub-channels,
namely: W()H, W(e)H, W(h)H, Z()H, Z(ee)H,
Z()H, with all H decaying to b
b. To best isolates the
signal from the background, several order of magnitudes
higher, a Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) discriminant is
used.
The cumulative plot of the di-jet invariant mass
distribution, summed over all VHbb sub-channels (Fig.5)
shows the first evidence of the Higgs decaying into a pair
of bottom quarks [16].
3.2 H
With its large mass, the is the most likely produced
lepton in Higgs decays (in comparison, for instance, to
H which is 290 times less abundant).

3.1 Hb
b (VHbb)
As the Higgs boson couples to mass, given the
kinematic limit of 126 GeV, the bottom quark is the
fermion most likely produced in Higgs decays. However,
because of the overwhelming QCD backgrounds at hadron
colliders, the detection of a Higgs boson decaying to b
b at
the LHC is only possible in the VHbb channel.

FIGURE 6. Combined observed and predicted m distributions

for the h, eh, hh, and e channels. The inset shows the
corresponding difference between the observed data and expected
background distributions, together with the signal distribution for
a SM Higgs boson at mH = 125 GeV [17].

FIGURE 5.
Weighted di-jet invariant mass distribution
combined over all VHbb sub-channels. All backgrounds have
been subtracted, except di-bosons [16].

Tau leptons are short lived particles with mean lifetime

t = 2.91013 sec (ct = 87.11 m). They are not directly
observed in the tracker, but they can be reconstructed from
their decay products. Taus decay leptonically ~ 35% of the
times, into muons () or electrons (e), and hadronically
(h) for the remaining 65% [8]. In any case, decays always
involve neutrinos which escape undetected, making their
kinematic not fully reconstructible.
The H analysis searches for a Higgs decaying into two
tau leptons [17]. This channel has less background than
Hb
b (no QCD process can produce a ), and it is

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E. Simili, et al.
sensitive to gg-fusion, VBF and associated HV production
of the Higgs boson.
The events in this analysis are selected by using a
combination of electronic, muonic and hadronic triggers,
and analyzed separately in exclusive event categories for all
combinations of e, and h.
The background is suppressed using a BDT
discriminant, trained on simulation of the signal and all
expected SM backgrounds. The kinematic fit of the
invariant mass m, combined over all sub-channels, is
shown in Fig.6 [17].

3.

4.

5.
6.
7.

4. CONCLUSIONS
Thanks to the efforts of both ATLAS and CMS
collaborations, most of the Higgs bosons properties (mass,
spin-parity, couplings) have been measured precisely and
the Higgs boson found its place in the PDG particle list [8].
The analysis has recently included fermionic decays,
observed for the first time in LHC data.
So far, all results are compatible with the Standard
Model Higgs boson, making the Higgs a quite unexciting
discovery, that has left high-energy physics without any
hint about whats next [18].
These results represent about the best we can achieve
with existing LHC data. Further study, such as detailed
branching ratios, Higgs self-coupling and the search for
MSSM Higgs multiplets, will require more data from the
LHC, which is supposed to re-start operation in 2015.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the ATLAS and CMS
collaborations, in particular the VHbb analysis group (CMS
collaboration) at KU-UNL.
Research supported in part by the Special Task Force
for Activating Research (STAR) Project, Ratchadaphiseksomphot Endowment Fund, Chulalongkorn University.

8.
9.

10.

11.

12.

13.
14.

15.
16.

17.

18.
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