On the determination of the structure of the scalar Higgs boson's couplings to vectorbosons

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the determination of the coupling structure of a Higgs boson at the LHC using angular correlations in the decay chain H -> ZZ -> 4l. We consider the most general couplings of a scalar to spin 1 particles and compare the angular correlations of the decay products using a maximum likelihood method. We use the full information from the LO matrix element including all posible correlations between the decay angles. In our analysis we include all possible mixings between the different coupling structures. We conclude that the coupling structure can in general be determined using this approach. But it has to be noted, that for Higgs boson masses below the ZZ-threshold the analysis is statistically limited. For higher Higgs boson masses reasonably strong limits on non standard couplings can be achieved at the LHC using the full integrated luminosity of 300 fb^-1.