Probing light-quark Yukawa couplings via hadronic event shapes at lepton colliders

Abstract: We propose a novel idea for probing the Higgs boson couplings through the measurement of hadronic event shape distributions in the decay of the Higgs boson at lepton colliders. The method provides a unique test of the Higgs boson couplings and of QCD effects in the decay of the Higgs boson. It can be used to probe the Yukawa couplings of the light quarks and to further test the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. From a case study for the proposed Circular Electron-Positron Collider, assuming a hypothesis of SM-like theory, light-quark couplings with a strength greater than 9% of the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling in the standard model can be excluded.