Phenomenology of Enhanced Light Quark Yukawa Couplings and the $W^\pm h$ Charge Asymmetry

Abstract

I propose the measurement of the $W^\pm h$ charge asymmetry as a consistency test for the Standard Model (SM) Higgs, which is sensitive to enhanced Yukawa couplings of the first and second generation quarks. I present a collider analysis for the charge asymmetry in the same-sign lepton final state, $p p \to W^\pm h \to (\ell^\pm ν) (\ell^\pm νjj)$, aimed at discovery significance for the SM $W^\pm h$ production mode in each charge channel with 300 fb$^{-1}$ of 14 TeV LHC data. Using this decay mode, I estimate the statistical precision on the charge asymmetry should reach 0.4\% with 3 ab$^{-1}$ luminosity, enabling a strong consistency test of the SM Higgs hypothesis. I also discuss direct and indirect constraints on light quark Yukawa couplings from direct and indirect probes of the Higgs width as well as Tevatron and Large Hadron Collider Higgs data. While the main effect from enhanced light quark Yukawa couplings is a rapid increase in the total Higgs width, such effects could be mitigated in a global fit to Higgs couplings, leaving the $W^\pm h$ charge asymmetry as a novel signature to test directly the Higgs couplings to light quarks.