Proposed measurement of longitudinally polarised vector bosons in $WH$ and $ZH$ production at Hadron colliders

Abstract

The longitudinal polarisation states of the $W$ and $Z$ bosons arise during electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking as the vector bosons absorb the Higgs boson's massless degrees of freedom. Consequently, these states are intrinsically linked to the EW symmetry breaking mechanism. Measuring the Higgs boson's coupling to them thus offers a unique opportunity to deepen our understanding of EW symmetry breaking and potentially opens a window to physics beyond the Standard Model. This work studies vector boson polarisation in associated $WH$ and $ZH$ production at the LHC, proposing analysis strategies for their measurement. We explore kinematic and angular observables and employ machine learning to optimise the separation between the longitudinal and transverse polarisation states. Furthermore, we perform a statistical analysis to assess the feasibility of observing longitudinally polarised $W^\pm$ or $Z$ boson production in association with a Higgs boson ($W^\pm_\mathrm{L}H$ and $Z_\mathrm{L}H$) in the $\ell^\pm\nu \gamma\gamma$ and $\ell^\pm\ell^\mp\gamma\gamma$ final states at the LHC. Our studies forecast that $W^\pm_\mathrm{L}H$ production could be measured by the LHC experiments with $>5.0\sigma$ significance using 300 fb$^{-1}$ of 14\,TeV proton-proton collision data. We project inclusive $W^\pm_\mathrm{L}H$ cross section measurement precisions of approximately $30\%$, $15\%$, and $10\%$ with 300 fb$^{-1}$, 1000 fb$^{-1}$, and 3000 fb$^{-1}$, respectively. For $Z_\mathrm{L}H$ production, we forecast a measurement reaching $\sim3.4\sigma$ significance and $35\%$ precision with 3000 fb$^{-1}$. Based on these results, we recommend repeating these studies using LHC data.