Higgs boson at LHC: a diffractive opportunity

Abstract

An alternative process is presented for diffractive Higgs boson production in peripheral $pp$ collisions, where the particles interact through the Double Pomeron Exchange. The event rate is computed as a central-rapidity distribution for Tevatron and LHC energies leading to a result around 0.6 pb, higher than the predictions from previous approaches. Therefore, this result arises as an enhanced signal for the detection of the Higgs boson in hadron colliders. The predictions for the Higgs boson photoproduction are compared to the ones obtained from a similar approach proposed by the Durham group, enabling an analysis of the future developments of its application to $pp$ and $AA$ collisions.