Dimension-six electroweak top-loop effects in Higgs production and decay

Abstract

We study the next-to-leading order electroweak corrections to Higgs processes from dimension-six top-quark operators in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory approach. We consider the major production channels, including W H, ZH, and VBF production at the LHC, and ZH, VBF production at future lepton colliders, as well as the major decay channels including H → γγ, γZ, W lν, Zll,bb¯ , μμ, ττ. The results show that within the current constraints, top-quark operators can shift the signal strength of the loop-induced processes, i.e. H → γγ, γZ, by factors of ∼O(1)−O(10), and that of the tree-level processes, i.e. all remaining production and decay channels, by ∼ 5 − 10% at the LHC, and up to ∼ 15% at future lepton colliders. This implies that essentially all Higgs channels have started to become sensitive to top-quark couplings, and in particular, Higgs observables at high luminosity LHC as well as future lepton colliders, even below the tt¯ threshold, will improve our knowledge of top-quark couplings. We derive the sensitivities of Higgs measurements to top-quark operators at the high luminosity LHC, using projections for both inclusive and differential measurements. We conclude that treating the dimension-six top-quark sector and the Higgs/electroweak sector separately may not continue to be a good strategy. A global analysis combining Higgs and top-quark measurements is desirable, and our calculation and implementation provide an automatic and realistic simulation tool for this purpose.