On the possibility to detect the Higgs decay $H\to b\bar{b}$ in the associated $Z+b\bar{b}$ production at the LHC

Abstract

We investigate the possibility to detect the scalar Higgs boson decay $H\to b\bar{b}$ in the associated $Z$ and $b\bar{b}$ production at the LHC using the $k_T$-factorization QCD approach. Our consideration is based on the off-shell (i.e. depending on the transverse momenta of initial quarks and gluons) production amplitudes of $q^{\ast }{\bar{q}}^{\ast }\to ZH\to Z{q}^{\prime }{\bar{q}}^{\prime }$, $q^{\ast }{\bar{q}}^{\ast }\to Z{q}^{\prime }{\bar{q}}^{\prime }$ and $g^{\ast }{g}^{\ast }\to Z{q}^{\prime }{\bar{q}}^{\prime }$ partonic subprocesses supplemented with the Catani-Ciafoloni-Fiorani-Marchesini (CCFM) dynamics of parton densities in a proton. We argue that the $H\to b\bar{b}$ signal could be observed at large transverse momenta near Higgs boson peak despite the overwhelming QCD background, and point out an important role of angular correlations between the produced $Z$ boson and $b$-quarks.

Comments: 11 pages, 6 figures