New method for extracting the bottom quark Yukawa coupling at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We propose a new method for measuring the H --> b (b) over bar rate at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in a manner which would allow extraction of the b quark Yukawa coupling. Higgs boson production in purely electroweak W H jj events is calculated. The Standard Model signal rate including decays W --> lv and H --> b (b) over bar is 11 fb for M-H = 120 GeV. It is possible to suppress the principal backgrounds, Wb (b) over bar jj and t (t) over bar jj, to approximately the level of the signal. As the top quark Yukawa couplings does not appear in this process, it promises a reliable extraction of g(Hbb) in the context of the Standard Model or some extensions, such as the MSSM. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.