Probing the Higgs self-coupling through double Higgs production in vector boson scattering at the LHC

Understand

In this work we explore the sensitivity to the Higgs self-coupling $\lambda$ in the production of two Higgs bosons via vector boson scattering at the LHC.

• Although these production channels, concretely $W^+W^- \to HH$ and $ ZZ \to HH$, have lower rates than gluon-gluon fusion, they benefit from being tree level processes, being independent of top physics and having very distinctive kinematics that allow to obtain very clean experimental signatures.
• This makes them competitive channels concerning the sensitivity to the Higgs self-coupling.
• In order to give predictions for the sensitivity to this coupling, we first study the role of $\lambda$ at the subprocess level, both in and beyond the Standard Model, to move afterwards to the LHC scenario.