Dilepton Signatures of the Higgs Boson with Tau-jet Tagging

Abstract

We consider the process $p p \to t {\bar t} H$. This process can give rise to many signatures of the Higgs boson. The signatures can have electrons, muons and jets. We consider the signatures that have two electrons/muons and jets. Tagging of a tau jet and a bottom jet can help reduce the backgrounds significantly. In particular, we examine the usefulness of the signatures "isolated 2 electrons/muons + a bottom jet + a tau jet", "isolated 2 electrons/muons + 2 tau jets", "isolated 2 electrons/muons + 2 bottom jets + a tau jet", and "isolated 2 electrons/muons + a bottom jet + 2 tau jets". We find that signatures with two tau jets are useful. The signatures with one tau jet are also useful, if we restrict to same-sign electrons/muons. These requirements reduce the backgrounds due the process with Z-bosons + jets and the production of a pair of top quarks. We show that these signatures may be visible in the run II of the Large Hadron Collider.