Sensing Higgs boson cascade decays through memory

Englert, C. , Fairbairn, M., Spannowsky, M., Stylianou, P. and Varma, S. (2020) Sensing Higgs boson cascade decays through memory. Physical Review D, 102(9), 095027. (doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.095027)

Abstract

Beyond the Standard Model scenarios with extensions of the Higgs sector typically predict new resonances that can undergo a series of cascade decays to detectable Standard Model particles. On the one hand, sensitivity to such signatures will contribute to the full reconstruction of the extended Higgs potential if a new physics discovery will be made. On the other hand, such cascade decays could be dominant decay channels, thus being potentially the best motivated signatures to achieve a new physics discovery in the first place. In this work we show how the long short-term memory that is encoded in the cascade decays’ phenomenology can be exploited in discriminating the signal from the background, where no such information is present. In parallel, we demonstrate for theoretically motivated scenarios that such an approach provides improved sensitivity compared to more standard analyses, where only information about the signal’s final state kinematics are included.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Stylianou, Mr Panagiotis and Englert, Professor Christoph
• Authors: Englert, C., Fairbairn, M., Spannowsky, M., Stylianou, P., and Varma, S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Physical Review D
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• ISSN: 2470-0010
• ISSN (Online): 2470-0029
• Published Online: 30 November 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 American Physical Society
• First Published: First published in Physical Review D 102(9): 095027
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
173809		Phenomenology from Lattice QCD and Collider Physics	Christine Davies	Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)	ST/P000746/1	P&S - Physics & Astronomy
308821		STFC Glasgow 2019 DTP	Martin Hendry	Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)	ST/T506102/1	P&S - Physics & Astronomy