OPMD

Abstract:

The observation of forward proton scattering in association with lepton pairs (e+e−+p or μ+μ−+p) produced via photon fusion is presented. The scattered proton is detected by the ATLAS Forward Proton spectrometer, while the leptons are reconstructed by the central ATLAS detector. Proton-proton collision data recorded in 2017 at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV are analyzed, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 14.6  fb−1. A total of 57 (123) candidates in the ee+p (μμ+p) final state are selected, allowing the background-only hypothesis to be rejected with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations in each channel. Proton-tagging techniques are introduced for cross-section measurements in the fiducial detector acceptance, corresponding to σee+p=11.0±2.6(stat)±1.2(syst)±0.3(lumi) and σμμ+p=7.2±1.6(stat)±0.9(syst)±0.2(lumi)  fb in the dielectron and dimuon channel, respectively.

Abstract:

Measuring the Higgs trilinear self-coupling λhhh is experimentally demanding but fundamental for understanding the shape of the Higgs potential. We present a comprehensive analysis strategy for the HL-LHC using di-Higgs events in the four b-quark channel (hh → 4b), extending current methods in several directions. We perform deep learning to suppress the formidable multijet background with dedicated optimisation for BSM λhhh scenarios. We compare the λhhh constraining power of events using different multiplicities of large radius jets with a two-prong structure that reconstruct boosted h → bb decays. We show that current uncertainties in the SM top Yukawa coupling yt can modify λhhh constraints by ∼ 20%. For SM yt, we find prospects of −0.8 < 𝜆ℎℎℎ/𝜆SMℎℎℎ < 6.6 at 68% CL under simplified assumptions for 3000 fb−1 of HL-LHC data. Our results provide a careful assessment of di-Higgs identification and machine learning techniques for all-hadronic measurements of the Higgs self-coupling and sharpens the requirements for future improvement.