Nonstandard Higgs couplings from angular distributions in [Formula: see text]

Area of Science:

• High Energy Physics
• Particle Physics
• Quantum Field Theory

Background:

• The Standard Model describes fundamental particles and forces.
• Higgs boson decays are crucial for probing beyond Standard Model physics.
• Effective field theories provide a model-independent way to study new physics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compute the fully differential decay rate of the Higgs boson.
• To explore new physics effects in Higgs boson decays using an electroweak chiral Lagrangian.
• To investigate the utility of decay form factors for accessing information on new physics.

Main Methods:

• Calculation of fully differential decay rates.
• Employment of the most general matrix elements within an effective Lagrangian framework.
• Utilizing an electroweak chiral Lagrangian with minimal particle content and Standard Model gauge symmetries.

Main Results:

• The study provides a method to obtain information on new physics from decay form factors.
• This information is shown to be inaccessible when integrating over angular variables in the dilepton-mass spectrum.
• Form factors are directly related to effective Lagrangian coefficients, enabling estimation of new physics effects.

Conclusions:

• The differential decay rate of the Higgs boson can reveal subtle new physics effects.
• Decay form factors offer a more sensitive probe of new physics than integrated spectra.
• The framework allows for the estimation of potential new physics contributions to Higgs decays.