Evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production from ZZ leptonic decay channels and constraints on its total width with the ATLAS detector



Aad, G, Abbott, B, Abeling, K, Abidi, SH, Aboulhorma, A, Abramowicz, H, Abreu, H, Abulaiti, Y, Abusleme Hoffman, AC, Acharya, BS
et al (show 2869 more authors) (2023) Evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production from ZZ leptonic decay channels and constraints on its total width with the ATLAS detector PHYSICS LETTERS B, 846. p. 138223. ISSN 0370-2693, 1873-2445

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Abstract

This Letter reports on a search for off-shell production of the Higgs boson using 139 fb−1 of pp collision data at s= 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The signature is a pair of Z bosons, with contributions from both the production and subsequent decay of a virtual Higgs boson and the interference of that process with other processes. The two observable final states are ZZ→4ℓ and ZZ→2ℓ2ν with ℓ=e or μ. In the ZZ→4ℓ final state, a dense Neural Network is used to enhance analysis sensitivity with respect to matrix element-based discrimination. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed (expected) significance of 3.3 (2.2) standard deviations, representing experimental evidence for off-shell Higgs boson production. Assuming that no new particles enter the production of the virtual Higgs boson, its total width can be deduced from the measurement of its off-shell production cross-section. The measured total width of the Higgs boson is 4.5<inf>−2.5</inf> +3.3 MeV, and the observed (expected) upper limit on the total width is found to be 10.5 (10.9) MeV at 95% confidence level.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 5106 Nuclear and Plasma Physics, 5107 Particle and High Energy Physics, 51 Physical Sciences
Divisions: Faculty of Health & Life Sciences
Faculty of Science & Engineering > School of Physical Sciences
Faculty of Health & Life Sciences > Inst. Systems, Molec & Integrative Biology > Inst. Systems, Molec & Integrative Biology
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 02 Nov 2023 11:47
Last Modified: 23 May 2026 07:59
DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138223
Open Access URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
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URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3176536
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