Photon pair production and the intermediate-mass Higgs boson
We study the production of photon pairs at future hadron colliders from quark-antiquark annihilation and gluon fusion via quark loops. We show that gluon fusion is just as important as quark-antiquark annihilation for photon pairs of invariant mass less than 200 GeV, and that the gluon-fusion cross section is twice as large for a light top quark as for a heavy top quark. Photon pairs are an irreducible background to the two-photon decay mode of the Higgs boson, which is important if the Higgs boson is of intermediate mass (m/sub H/<2M/sub W/) and m/sub H/<2m/sub t/, i.e., if its decay to top quarks is kinematically forbidden. If that is the case, we show that the top-quark contribution to the gluon-fusion process is small and, if m/sub H/approx. =2m/sub t/, is even destructive. We also show that a judicious choice of cuts can improve the signal-to-background ratio.
- Research Organization:
- Center for Particle Theory, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712
- OSTI ID:
- 5374743
- Journal Information:
- Phys. Rev. D; (United States), Vol. 37:7
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
PROTON-PROTON INTERACTIONS
PAIR PRODUCTION
QUARK-ANTIQUARK INTERACTIONS
ANNIHILATION
CROSS SECTIONS
HIGGS BOSONS
PHOTONS
THEORETICAL DATA
BARYON-BARYON INTERACTIONS
BASIC INTERACTIONS
DATA
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
HADRON-HADRON INTERACTIONS
INFORMATION
INTERACTIONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
NUCLEON-NUCLEON INTERACTIONS
NUMERICAL DATA
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
POSTULATED PARTICLES
PROTON-NUCLEON INTERACTIONS
645202* - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical- Electromagnetic Interactions & Properties
645203 - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical- Weak Interactions & Properties