An approach to constraining the Higgs width at the LHC and HL-LHC

Abstract

Despite the discovery of the Higgs boson decay in five separate channels many parameters of the Higgs boson remain largely unconstrained. In this paper, we present a new approach to constraining the Higgs total width by requiring the Higgs to be resolved as a single high p$_T$ jet and measuring the inclusive Higgs boson cross section. To measure the inclusive Higgs boson cross section, we rely on new approaches from machine learning and a modified jet reconstruction. This approach is found to be complementary to the existing off-shell width measurement and, with the full HL-LHC luminosity, is capable of yielding similar sensitivity to the off-shell projections. We outline the theoretical and experimental limitations and present a path towards making this approach a truly model-independent measurement of the Higgs boson total width.