Boosting the standard model Higgs signal with the Template Overlap Method

We show that the Template Overlap Method can improve the signal to background ratio of boosted h -> b (b) over bar events produced in association with a leptonically decaying W. We introduce several improvements on the previous formulations of the template method. Varying three-particle template subcones increases the rejection power against the backgrounds, while the longitudinally invariant, sequential template generation ensures an efficient coverage in template phase space. We integrate b-tagging information into the template overlap framework and introduce a new template based observable, the template stretch. We further improve on the previous formulation of Template Planar Flow by including the effects of finite size subcones centered at each template momentum. Our analysis takes into account the contamination from the charm daughters of top decays in t (t) over bar events, and includes nearly-realistic effects of pileup and underlying events. We show that the Template Overlap Method displays very low sensitivity to pileup, hence providing a self-contained alternative to other methods of pile up subtraction. The developments described in this work are quite general, and may apply to other searches for massive boosted objects.