Resolving gluon fusion loops at current and future hadron colliders

Abstract

Inclusive Higgs measurements at the LHC have limited resolution on the gluon fusion loops, being unable to distinguish the long-distance contributions mediated by the top quark from possible short-distance new physics effects. Using an Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach we compare several proposed methods to lift this degeneracy, including tt¯ h and boosted, off-shell and double Higgs production, and perform detailed projections to the High-Luminosity LHC and a future hadron collider. In addition, we revisit off-shell Higgs production. Firstly, we point out its sensitivity to modifications of the top-Z couplings, and by means of a general analysis we show that the reach is comparable to that of tree-level processes such as tt¯ Z production. Implications for composite Higgs models are also discussed. Secondly, we assess the regime of validity of the EFT, performing an explicit comparison for a simple extension of the Standard Model containing one vector-like quark.