Detecting Higgs-Boson Decays intoZPairs

Abstract

A Higgs boson in the mass range 400-1000 GeV would be observable at the Superconducting Super Collider through its decay into two $Z\text{'}\mathrm{s}$, one of which decays into $e^{+}{e}^{-} or {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ and the other into $\nu \overline{\nu }$. A comparison with the background from continuum $Z$ pairs shows that the signal would be apparent in the transverse-mass spectrum. The increase in statistics provided by these decays substantially extends the reach of the Superconducting Super Collider for discovering the Higgs boson.