Search for Higgs boson production at high transverse momentum in the WW decay channel in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

A search for Higgs boson () production at high transverse momentum (pT) in the WW decay channel is presented. The analysis uses proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment in 2016$-$2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb⁻¹. The visible decay products of the Higgs boson are reconstructed as a single large-radius jet with one isolated lepton or none (1 and 0, respectively; = e, $μ$). The -candidate jets are identified using an advanced transformer-based algorithm and are calibrated with the Lund jet plane reweighting technique. The 1 channel is further split into gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and associated production with hadronically decaying vector boson categories, while the 0 channel considers all production processes inclusively. The measured cross section times the H → WW branching fraction relative to the standard model expectation is $μ$ = $-$0.19+0.48-0.46, indicating no evidence of a signal above the background. This measurement represents the first dedicated study of highly Lorentz-boosted H → WW decays, complementing earlier searches for high-pT Higgs boson in other decay channels.