Probing anomalous Higgs couplings in $H \to Z V$ decays

Abstract

We analyze the possibility of probing anomalous Higgs couplings in the rare decays $H \to Z V$, $V$ being a vector quarkonium state. These rare decays involve both gauge as well as the Yukawa sectors and either of them can potentially be anomalous. We show that the branching fractions for $H \to Z V$ decays in Standard Model are small, making it a sensitive probe for anomalous Higgs couplings originating from physics beyond Standard Model. Moreover, as both $V$ and $Z$ can decay into pair of charged leptons, they provide experimentally clean channels and future LHC runs should observe such decays. We perform a model independent analysis and show how angular asymmetries can be used to probe these anomalous Higgs couplings, taking further decays of $V$ and $Z$ to pair of charged leptons into account. The angular asymmetries can provide significant information about anomalous Higgs couplings in both gauge and Yukawa sectors.