The Higgs boson may well be a composite scalar with a finite extension in space. Owing to the momentum dependence of its couplings, the imprints of such a composite pseudo Goldstone Higgs may show up in the tails of various kinematic distributions at the LHC, distinguishing it from an elementary state. From the bottom up, we construct the momentum-dependent form factors to capture the interactions of the composite Higgs with the weak gauge bosons. We demonstrate their impact in the differential distributions of various kinematic parameters for the $pp\to Z^{*}H\to l^{+}{l}^{-}b\overline{b}$ channel. We show that this channel can provide an important handle to probe the Higgs’ substructure at the HL-LHC.

• Received 16 August 2021
• Accepted 28 October 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.095021

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society