Measurement of ttH and tH Production Rates in the H to bb Decay Channel at CMS

• Abhisek Datta (University of California Los Angeles (US))

Room: Sunrise - WH11NE Associated production of the Higgs boson with a top quark-antiquark pair (𝑡𝑡̅𝐻) provides the best direct probe of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling at tree-level. Measurement of this coupling is important not only to confirm the predictions made by the Standard Model but also to search for indications of new physics. In this talk, I will present an analysis of 𝑡𝑡̅𝐻 production with the Higgs boson decaying to a 𝑏𝑏 pair which has the largest branching fraction. Latest results obtained using pp collision data at the CERN LHC recorded by the CMS experiment at √𝑠 = 13 TeV between 2016 and 2018 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 𝑓𝑏−1 will be shown. One particularly challenging background limiting the precision of this measurement arises from direct 𝑡𝑡 + 𝑏𝑏 production. Measurements of both the overall 𝑡𝑡𝐻 production rate and in intervals of Higgs boson transverse momentum are performed. The production of a Higgs boson with a single top quark (𝑡𝐻) is also studied and an upper limit is set on its production rate. Finally, constraints are derived on the strength and structure of the coupling between the Higgs boson and the top quark from simultaneous measurements of 𝑡𝑡̅𝐻 and 𝑡𝐻 production rates.