The rare three-body decay of a Higgs boson to a lepton–antilepton pair and a photon has begun to attract attention, after the first evidence for the <inline-formula><tex-math id='TM0002' notation='LaTeX'>$H\rightarrow Z\gamma$</tex-math></inline-formula> channel at CMS and ATLAS, which is a subprocess of <inline-formula><tex-math id='TM0003' notation='LaTeX'>$H \rightarrow \ell ^+ \ell ^- \gamma$</tex-math></inline-formula>. To investigate some important features of this process, we suggest that the polarized forward-backward and the photon polarization asymmetries could be useful to probe its important properties, such as the behavior of Yukawa coupling, resonance, and nonresonance contributions. Our analysis introduces a comprehensive framework to evaluate the aforementioned polarization-dependent observables. By analyzing the polarization effects of the final-state photon and lepton separately on forward-backward asymmetries, we demonstrate that loop-induced contributions play a significant role in investigating these asymmetries. Unlike the unpolarized case, where the interference effects of resonance and nonresonance effects are minimal, we show that polarization-dependent observables offer a powerful tool to analyze these features of this decay mode. Furthermore, these observables can provide a handy tool for probing possible signatures of physics beyond the SM.

Pakistan

Usman Hasan

A Uzair

M Junaid

Bilal Tariq

Ishtiaq Ahmed

Shahin Iqbal

Polarization-Dependent Observables in <italic>H</italic> &#8594; &#8467; <sup>+</sup> &#8467; <sup>&#8211;</sup> &#947; in the SM

Inside a medium, showers originating from a very high energy particle develop via medium-induced splitting processes such as bremsstrahlung and pair production. During shower development, two consecutive splittings sometimes overlap quantum mechanically, so that they cannot be treated independently. Some of these effects can be absorbed into an effective value of a medium parameter known as $$ \hat{q} $$ . Previous calculations (with certain simplifying assumptions) have found that, after adjusting the value of $$ \hat{q} $$ , the leftover effect of overlapping splittings is quite small for purely gluonic large- showers but is very much larger for large- QED showers, at comparable values of . Here, by investigating the same problem for QCD in the large- limit of many quark flavors, we make a first study of whether the small effect in purely gluonic showers (i) was merely an accident or (ii) is more broadly characteristic of such overlap effects in QCD. We also offer a qualitative explanation for the large size of the effect in QED vs. QCD.

United States

Peter Arnold

China

Omar Elgedawy

Switzerland

Are in-medium quark-gluon showers strongly coupled? results in the large-

Erratum to: In-medium loop corrections and longitudinally polarized gauge bosons in high-energy showers

Inside a medium, showers originating from a very high-energy particle may develop via medium-induced splitting processes such as hard bremsstrahlung or pair production. During shower development, two consecutive splittings sometimes overlap quantum mechanically, so that they cannot be treated independently. Some of these effects can be absorbed into an effective value of a medium parameter known as   <math> <mover> <mi>q</mi> <mo>̂</mo> </mover> </math>  $$ \hat{q} $$ . Previous calculations (with certain simplifying assumptions) have found that, after adjusting the value of   <math> <mover> <mi>q</mi> <mo>̂</mo> </mover> </math>  $$ \hat{q} $$ , the leftover effect of overlapping splittings is quite small for purely gluonic large-N c showers but is very much larger for large-N f QED showers, at comparable values of Nα. Those works did not quite make for apples-to-apples comparisons: the gluon shower work investigated energy deposition from a gluon-initiated shower, whereas the QED work investigated charge-deposition from an electron-initiated shower. As a first step to tighten up the comparison, this paper investigates energy deposition in the QED case. Along the way, we develop a framework that should be useful in the future to explore whether the very small effect of overlapping splitting in purely gluonic showers is an artifact of having ignored quarks.

CERN

Strongly vs. weakly coupled in-medium showers: energy stopping in large-N f QED

Recently, the CMS and ATLAS collaborations have announced the results for H → Z[→ ℓ + ℓ  − ]γ with ℓ = e or μ [1, 2], where H → Zγ is a sub-process of H → ℓ + ℓ  −  γ. This semi-leptonic Higgs decay gets both resonant and non-resonant contributions from the loop-induced H → Z[→ ℓ + ℓ  − ]γ. To probe further features coming from these contributions to H → ℓ + ℓ  −  γ, we argue that the polarization of the final state leptons is also an important parameter. We show that the interference of resonant and non-resonant contributions, which is negligible in the case of unpolarized leptons, plays a significant role when considering the polarization of the final state lepton. For this purpose, we have calculated the polarized decay rates and the longitudinal (P  L ), normal (P  N ), and transverse (P  T ) polarization asymmetries. We find that these asymmetries purely come from the loop contributions and are helpful to further investigate the resonant and non-resonant nature of H → Z[→ ℓ + ℓ  − ]γ decay. We observe that for ℓ = e, μ, the longitudinal decay rate is highly suppressed around m  ℓℓ  ≈ 60 GeV when the final lepton spin is   <math> <mo>−</mo> <mfrac> <mn>1</mn> <mn>2</mn> </mfrac> </math>  $$ -\frac{1}{2} $$ , dramatically increasing the corresponding lepton polarization asymmetries. Furthermore, we analyze another observable, the ratio of decay rates   <math> <msubsup> <mi>R</mi> <mrow> <mi>i</mi> <mo>±</mo> </mrow> <msup> <mi>ll</mi> <mo>′</mo> </msup> </msubsup> </math>  $$ {R}_{i\pm}^{{\mathcal{ll}}^{\prime }} $$ , where ℓ and ℓ  ′  refer to different final state lepton generations. Precise measurements of these observables at the HL-LHC and the planned e + e  −  collider can provide fertile ground to test not only the SM but also to examine the signatures of possible NP beyond the SM.

M. Junaid

A. Uzair

Analysis of final state lepton polarization-dependent observables in H → ℓ + ℓ − γ in the SM at loop level

We study whether in-medium showers of high-energy gluons can be treated as a sequence of individual splitting processes <math><mrow><mi>g</mi><mo>→</mo><mi>g</mi><mi>g</mi></mrow></math>, or whether there is significant quantum overlap between where one splitting ends and the next begins. Accounting for the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect, we calculate such overlap effects to leading order in high-energy <math><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>α</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msub><mo>(</mo><mi>μ</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></math> for the simplest theoretical situation. We investigate a measure of overlap effects that is independent of physics that can be absorbed into an effective value <math><msub><mover><mi>q</mi><mo>^</mo></mover><mi>eff</mi></msub></math> of the jet-quenching parameter <math><mover><mi>q</mi><mo>^</mo></mover></math>.

Are Gluon Showers inside a Quark-Gluon Plasma Strongly Coupled? A Theorist’s Test

We give details of our study as to whether high-energy gluon showers inside a QCD medium can be treated as a sequence of individual splitting processes <math><mi>g</mi><mo>→</mo><mi>g</mi><mi>g</mi></math>, or whether there is significant quantum overlap between where one splitting ends and the next begins (neglecting effects that can be absorbed into an effective value of the jet-quenching parameter <math><mover><mi>q</mi><mo>^</mo></mover></math> that characterizes the medium). The study is carried out by imagining in-medium gluon-shower development in the simplest theoretical situation, which includes imagining a very large, static, homogeneous medium and taking the large <math><msub><mi>N</mi><mi>c</mi></msub></math> limit. Along the way, we also show how in-medium shower evolution can be written in terms of a “net” splitting rate <math><mo>[</mo><mi>d</mi><mi>Γ</mi><mo>/</mo><mi>d</mi><mi>x</mi><msub><mo>]</mo><mrow><mi>net</mi></mrow></msub></math>, and we provide a moderately simple analytic fit to our numerical results for the overlap effects included in that rate, which we hope may be of use to others wishing to study possible consequences of overlapping splittings.

Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect in sequential bremsstrahlung: Gluon shower development

The splitting processes of bremsstrahlung and pair production in a medium are coherent over large distances in the very high energy limit, which leads to a suppression known as the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect. We continue study of the case when the coherence lengths (formation lengths) of two consecutive splitting processes overlap, avoiding soft-emission approximations. Previous work made a “nearly-complete” calculation of the effect of overlapping formation times on gluonic splittings such as g → gg → ggg (with simplifying assumptions such as an infinite QCD medium and the large-N c limit). In this paper, we extend those previous rate calculations from nearly-complete to complete by including processes involving the exchange of longitudinally-polarized gluons. In the context of Lightcone Pertubation Theory, used earlier for the “nearly-complete” calculation, such exchanges are instantaneous in lightcone time and have their own diagrammatic representation.