• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.87.073005
• Corpus ID: 92984774

Finding the Higgs boson in decays to $Z \gamma$ using the matrix element method at Next-to-Leading Order

@article{Campbell2013FindingTH,
  title={Finding the Higgs boson in decays to \$Z \gamma\$ using the matrix element method at Next-to-Leading Order},
  author={John M. Campbell and R. Keith Ellis and Walter T. Giele and Ciaran Williams},
  journal={Physical Review D},
  year={2013},
  volume={87},
  pages={073005}
}

• J. Campbell, R. Ellis, +1 author Ciaran Williams
• Published 29 January 2013
• Physics
• Physical Review D

We illustrate how the Matrix Element Method at Next-to-Leading Order (MEM@NLO) can be used to discriminate between events arising from the production of a Higgs boson, which subsequently decays to a final state consisting of ell^+ell^-gamma, and the background production of the same final state. We illustrate how the method could be used in an experimental analysis by devising cuts on the signal (P_S) and background (P_B) weights that are computed event-by-event in this approach. We find that we can increase the S/sqrt(B) ratio by around 50\% compared to an invariant mass fit on its own. Considering only statistical uncertainty, this is equivalent to recording a factor of around two times more integrated luminosity.