Patrick Janot edited 13311371900452937.tex  almost 11 years ago

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The latter measurement has an important consequence for the determination of the total Higgs decay width. In $\epem$ collisions, it is not possible to directly observe the width of the Higgs boson if it is as small as the Standard Model prediction of 4 MeV. However, the total width of the Higgs boson is given by the formula  $$ \Gamma_{\rm tot} = { {\Gamma {\rm(H \to ZZ)}} \over {{\rm BR(H \to ZZ)}} }$$  The partial decay width $\Gamma{\rm(H \to ZZ)}$ is directly proportional to the inclusive cross section $\sigma_{\rm HZ}$, which can be measured with excellent precision from the so-called "recoil mass" distribution in the $\ell^+\ell^-{\rm H}$ final state (Fig.~\ref{fig:recoil}), as shown in Table~\ref{tab:HiggsBranching}. The Higgs boson branching ratio to ZZ is in turn obtained from the number of ZZZ events, proportional to $\sigma_{\rm HZ} \times {\rm BR(H\to ZZ)}$. With the sole 240 GeV data, TLEP is therefore able to determine the Higgs boson decay width with a precision of the order of 3\% in this channel. As indicated in Ref.~\cite{cite:ILCTDR}, it takes five additional years of data at $\sqrt{s} = 500$ GeV for the ILC to reach a precision of 6\% on the same quantity, with the ${\rm H \to b\bar b}\nu\bar\nu$ final state produced via WW fusion.