Higgs Boson Discovery Potential of LHC in the Channel $pp \toγγ+jet$

Abstract

We discuss the SM Higgs discovery potential of LHC in the reaction $pp\to H+ jet\toγγ+jet$ when the jet is observed at sufficiently high $E_t$ to be reliably identified. We conclude that this channel gives promising discovery possibilities for the Higgs boson mass range 100-140 GeV, during LHC operation at a low luminosity. With 30 fb$^{-1}$ of accumulated data and for $M_H=120$ GeV about 100 signal events could be observed with the number of background events larger by a factor of 2 only, showing a signal significance $S/\sqrt{B}\sim 7$. We use the difference of distributions in the partonic subprocess energy $\sqrt{\hat s}$ for the signal and background for a better separation of the signal.

15 pages including 6 figures, LaTeX, use epsfig.sty. To appear in Phys.Lett.B. In this replacement minor LaTeX improvements are made