Study of WH production through vector boson scattering and extraction of the relative sign of the W and Z couplings to the Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions at <math altimg="si1.svg"><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>13</mn><mspace width="0.2em"/><mtext>TeV</mtext></math>

Benecke, Anna;Bethani, Agni;Bruno, Giacomo;Caputo, Claudio;CMS;et.al.
(2025) Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics — Vol. 860 (2025)

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Abstract
A search for the production of a W boson and a Higgs boson through vector boson scattering (VBS) is presented, using CMS data from proton-proton collisions at <math altimg="si1.svg"><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>13</mn><mspace width="0.2em"/><mtext>TeV</mtext></math> collected from 2016 to 2018. The integrated luminosity of the data sample is 138<math altimg="si2.svg"><mspace width="0.2em"/><msup><mrow><mtext>fb</mtext></mrow><mrow><mo linebreak="badbreak" linebreakstyle="after">−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></math>. Selected events must be consistent with the presence of two jets originating from VBS, the leptonic decay of the W boson to an electron or muon, possibly also through an intermediate τ lepton, and a Higgs boson decaying into a pair of b quarks, reconstructed as either a single merged jet or two resolved jets. A measurement of the process as predicted by the standard model (SM) is performed alongside a study of beyond-the-SM (BSM) scenarios. The SM analysis sets an observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limit of 14.3 (9.9) on the ratio of the measured VBS WH cross section to that expected by the SM. The BSM analysis, conducted within the so-called κ framework, excludes all scenarios with <math altimg="si3.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></mrow></msub><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">&lt;</mo><mn>0</mn></math> that are consistent with current measurements, where <math altimg="si4.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></mrow></msub><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><msub><mrow><mi>κ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">/</mo><msub><mrow><mi>κ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></mrow></msub></math> and <math altimg="si35.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>κ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi></mrow></msub></math> and <math altimg="si36.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>κ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></mrow></msub></math> are the <math altimg="si7.svg"><mi mathvariant="normal">H</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi></math> and <math altimg="si8.svg"><mi mathvariant="normal">H</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></math> coupling modifiers, respectively. The significance of the exclusion is beyond 5 standard deviations, and it is consistent with the SM expectation of <math altimg="si9.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>λ</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">Z</mi></mrow></msub><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>1</mn></math>.
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Benecke, A., Bethani, A., Bruno, G., Caputo, C., de Favereau de Jeneret, J., Delaere, C., Donertas, I. S., Giammanco, A., Guzel, A. O., Jain, S., Lemaitre, V., Lidrych, J., Mastrapasqua, P., Tran, T. T., Wertz, S., CMS, & et al. (2025). Study of WH production through vector boson scattering and extraction of the relative sign of the W and Z couplings to the Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions at <math altimg=“si1.svg”><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak=“goodbreak” linebreakstyle=“after”>=</mo><mn>13</mn><mspace width=“0.2em”/><mtext>TeV</mtext></math>. Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, 860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2024.139202 (Original work published 2025)