Can the Higgs be seen in rapidity gap events at the Tevatron or the LHC?

Abstract

Double diffractive Higgs production at $pp$ (or $\bar{p}p$) colliders continues to attract attention as a potential signal in the search for the boson. We present improved perturbative QCD estimates of the event rates for both the exclusive and inclusive double diffractive Higgs processes, paying particular attention to the survival probability of the rapidity gaps. We find that the major uncertainty is in the prediction for the survival probability associated with soft rescattering. We show that an analogous process, the double diffractive production of a pair of jets with large values of $E_T$, has an event rate which makes it accessible at the Tevatron. Observation of this process can therefore be used as a luminosity monitor for two- gluon exchange processes, such as the production of a Higgs boson with rapidity gaps on either side.