Tests of Anomalous Higgs Boson Couplings through $e^-e^+ \to HZ$ and $H\gamma$

Abstract

We show how the processes $e^- e^+ \to ZH, ~ \gamma H$, which will be studied at LEP2 and at high energy colliders, could be used to search for types of New Physics (NP) characterized by an effective NP scale in the few TeV range and affecting the scalar sector only. In particular, for $e^- e^+ \to Z H$, we propose the measurement of suitable azimuthal asymmetries determined from the angular distribution of the $Z$-decay plane with respect to the $Z$-production one. Such asymmetries, together with the $ZH$ angular distribution, may allow a complete disentangling of the five $dim=6$ operators $ {\cal O }_{UB}$, $ {\cal O }_{UW}$, $\overline{{\cal O }}_{UB}$, $\overline{{\cal O }}_{UW}$, ${\cal O }_{\Phi2}$, describing the residual NP effects to the Higgs couplings. We note that the first four of these operators contribute to processes relevant to LEP1 precision measurements only at the 1-loop level, while the last operator remains completely unconstrained at this level. The process $e^- e^+ \to \gamma H$ is also very sensitive to NP and should bring important independent information.