What is the Higgs trilinear self-coupling? · revision history

Revision 2

Accepted · core change · record

Changes against revision 1:

Title
What is the Higgs trilinear self-coupling?
Plain
The Higgs interacts with itself, and the SM predicts the exact strength from the Higgs mass. Measuring it requires seeing Higgs bosons produced in pairs, an extremely rare process.
Precise · changed · core
Revision 1: Measure $\kappa_{\lambda} = \lambda_3/\lambda_3^{\mathrm{SM}}$, where the SM gives $\lambda_3 = m_h^2/(2 v^2) \sim 0.13$ for the cubic term $\lambda_3 v h^3$. An answer is kappa_lambda with total uncertainty below about 0.3 (30 percent), sufficient to distinguish the SM from models with a strongly first-order phase transition.
Revision 2: Measure $\kappa_{\lambda} = \lambda_3/\lambda_3^{\mathrm{SM}}$, where the SM gives $\lambda_3 = m_h^2/(2 v^2) \sim 0.13$ for the cubic term $\lambda_3 v h^3$. An answer is $\kappa_{\lambda}$ with total uncertainty below about 0.3 (30 percent), sufficient to distinguish the SM from models with a strongly first-order phase transition.
Settled by
Combined HH production at the HL-LHC (projected about 30 to 50 percent precision) and at a future collider (FCC-hh projected $\sim 5$ percent).
Kind
well-posed
Answer type
value
References
(empty)
Literature status
open
Status note
The 2026 ATLAS plus CMS Run 2 HH combination (arXiv:2602.23991) gives $-0.71 < \kappa_{\lambda} < 6.1$ at 95 percent CL (expected -1.3 to 6.7) and HH signal strength $0.8 +0.9/-0.7$, an observed significance of $1.1\sigma$.
Posed since
(empty)

Decisions