Associated production of Higgs bosons with<i>tt¯</i>pairs

Abstract

Associated production of Higgs bosons with top-antitop pairs at hadron colliders, pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}Htt\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}X, is examined. By tagging on an isolated secondary lepton, e or \ensuremath{\mu}, from the t or t\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{} decay, discovery of an intermediate-mass Higgs boson, ${\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{H}}$\ensuremath{\simeq}80--150 GeV, via H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma} is rendered feasible at the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) (\ensuremath{\surd}s =40 TeV). Allowing a factor-of-0.4 signal reduction for isolation cuts and selection efficiencies leaves about 21 events per SSC year for ${\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{H}}$\ensuremath{\simeq}80--130 GeV, and somewhat less for 130--150 GeV, above an anticipated small background. At the CERN Large Hadron Collider (\ensuremath{\surd}s =16 TeV), the cross section is reduced by about a factor of 1/8.