Four-fermion decay of Higgs bosons

Abstract

We calculate four-fermion decays of a Higgs boson via $WW$ and/or $ZZ$ intermediate states for Higgs masses below $m_W$. We examine models with a doubly-charged Higgs boson $H^{++}$ and show that the four-fermion decay is the dominant mode for a wide range of parameter space. Existing searches for $H^{++}$ in $Z$ decays have not looked for this mode. We also derive four-fermion decay rate for a neutral Higgs boson.