Comparative study of the benefits of forward jet tagging in heavy-Higgs-boson production at the Superconducting Super Collider

The event rate for production of a Higgs boson of mass {~}1 TeV with decay H→ZZ→4 charged leptons is of order 25 events per year at standard Superconducting Super Collider luminosity and the QCD background is of comparable size. By tagging a single forward jet of energy Eⱼ>1 TeV and rapidity 2<|ηⱼ|<5 from the qq→qqZZ process, the QCD background can be essentially eliminated, with about 10 Higgs-boson signal events per year remaining, which amounts to 70% of the qq→qqZZ signal rate. The experimental separation of the vector-boson scattering subprocess is thereby possible.