## More Higgs updates from Moriond

The key update from today’s presentations is a measurement by ATLAS of the cross section for the Higgs decaying to two W bosons, which each then decay to a lepton and a neutrino: the $$H\to WW\to ll\nu\nu$$ channel. It comes on the heels of a similar measurement presented by CMS last week. Both detectors are now reporting that they measure a strong signal for $$\ell\bar\ell\nu\bar\nu$$ detection beyond the standard model (without a Higgs boson) at $$\SI{125}{GeV}$$, with a significance of $$4.0\sigma$$ at CMS and $$3.8\sigma$$ at ATLAS. In other words, if the particles of the standard model, not including the newly discovered Higgs candidate, were all the particles there are, the probability that each detector would measure what it did is less than a hundredth of a percent.
Compared to the last batch of Higgs search results, when ATLAS was only detecting a $$2.6\sigma$$ signal and CMS a $$3.1\sigma$$ signal, this is a significant improvement indeed. (Pun intended, if you got it!) As far as I know, nobody has combined the new results from ATLAS and CMS to see just what statistical significance they get when put together, but if they did, it would likely be above the “mythical” $$5\sigma$$ threshold in this channel alone. Plainly put, that means we are now effectively certain the newly discovered particle decays to W bosons.
I leave you with this animation of the signal appearing in the $$H\to WW$$ channel at ATLAS, showing how it differs from the expectation based on a standard model without the Higgs, and how including a standard model Higgs boson with a mass of $$\SI{125}{GeV}$$ very neatly fills in the gap.