Fat b-jet analyses using old and new clustering algorithms in new Higgs boson searches at the LHC

Abstract

Abstract We compare different jet-clustering algorithms in establishing fully hadronic final states stemming from the chain decay of a heavy Higgs state into a pair of the 125 GeV Higgs boson that decays into bottom-antibottom quark pairs. Such 4b events typically give rise to boosted topologies, wherein $$b{\bar{b}}$$ b b ¯ pairs emerging from each 125 GeV Higgs boson tend to merge into a single, fat b-jet. Assuming large hadron collider (LHC) settings, we illustrate how both the efficiency of selecting the multi-jet final state and the ability to reconstruct from it the masses of all Higgs bosons depend on the choice of jet-clustering algorithm and its parameter settings. We indicate the optimal choice of clustering method for the purpose of establishing such a ubiquitous beyond the SM (BSM) signal, illustrated via a Type-II 2-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM).