Constraints on anomalous HVV couplings in the production of Higgs bosons decaying to tau lepton pairs

CDS record for the paper draft: http://cms.cern.ch/cds/HIG-17-034

Detailed record of the paper: http://cms.cern.ch/iCMS/analysisadmin/cadi?ancode=HIG-17-034

Institutional Review of the Torino Group.

We congratulate with the proponents of this paper. The analysis is well detailed both on theoretical and experimental side.

Type B

In term of the general structure, we only find a lack in clarity in the systematic uncertainty description, please see the related comments on that section. Other general comment is on the usage of the “tau lepton” wording. We suggest to drop everywhere in the text the word “lepton” when associated to tau (we never write electron lepton).

Title: drop lepton

Abstract: drop leptons at the end of the 2nd sentence.

L15: leptons –> particle (or even nothing)

L23: add citation to MELA

L29: remove leptons

L27-29: The sentence is not clear. What are the other cases where you can study Htautau couplings, excluding ditaus events?

L29: di-tau –> ditau

L53-54: It is written that the sample used for the analysis is the same as a previous analysis, please report at least the integrated luminosity of the sample and the data taking period.

L78: remove leptons

L91-92: the sentence seems truncated, m_vis and m_tautau are used to do what?

L97: Selected events are classified into four decay channels.. –> Selected events are classified according to four decay channels..

L102 and 103: please use different units, there is no need to write so much zeroes: 0.2cm –> 2mm, 0.045cm –> 0.45mm

L106: on pseudorapidity there is not a “threshold”. We suggest to replace thresholds with maximum values

L108: highest pt th candidate –> highest-pt th-candidate

L117-119: the 0-jet category selection requirements are not reported at all, it would be useful to write the criteria used to select events in this category.

Tab 1: Caption: why are approximate? Table: I^mu and I^e have been never introduced in the text, nor are explained in the caption.

Systematic Uncertainty: This a subsection under the “Event Reconstruction and Selection” section. However, the uncertainties that you describe here are not exclusively coming from the event reconstruction and selection. It is difficult to understand to what quantity the quoted numbers refer to. E.g., L144, 2% refers to which variable? Or also, in L165, 3-10% is on Z–>tautau yield, or on the final measurement, and if so, on which observable? Also, there are variables and backgrounds that have never been described before, especially from L165 onward it is hard to follow the description you give. Before going into the comment line by line, we suggest to move this section later in section 6, making it subsection 6.3.

L144: what do you mean with “genuine”?

L144: remove leptons

L146: what do you mean that are “allowed to fluctuate”? Do you mean that in the estimation of the impact of this systematic uncertainty on the final observable you vary it by 3%? If so it should be described better.

L149: tt –> t\bar{t}

L153: a linear uncertainty that increase –> an uncertainty that increases linearly

L159: Thank you for having taken them into account, and then? What is their impact? Either you state it is negligible or you should quote some numbers.

L163: Same story here, the reader ask him/her self: how much does it vary?

L165: 3-10% is on what? The ZZ→tautau yield? (see comment in the preamble)

L166: the sentence says: “Additional uncertainty … reaching up to 20% are taken into account”. Where do they come from? What are these “additional uncertainty”? Also, 20% refers to what?

L167-L183: Control regions have never been described before, nor the extrapolation technique.

E.q. 6: Since in the text you say that Dint = Dcp, I would also write it explicitly in the equation.

L300: following your convention omega should not in bold but rather have the arrow on top.

Fig. 2, 3 and 4. In black and white they are hardly readable. One cannot distinguish the different processes. At leas the dominant one should be easily understandable also in b&w.

Fig.2 right. The histogram is too small. Half of the plot is empty (do we really need to show that for mtautau< 100GeV we have 0 events??)

L391: what do the proponents mean with “actual fit”?

Results

General comment on the display of the results. There is no need to use all the figures you put. Actually, it seems odd and we do not add true information. Here the punctual suggestions: L427: (0.6 +- 0.5, 1.0 +0.5-0.4) L428: (0.7+-0.5, 0.9+-0.4) (0.9+0.4-0.5, 0.8+0.5-0.4) (0.9+-0.5, 0.8+-0.4)

Tab.2: first line: 0.0+0.9-0.4 0.0+-0.3 the other line are OK, because you retain two figures when uncertainty is 1.x.

Tab.3: first, third, and fourth lines are OK second: 0+1.0-0.2 the other number is OK

Type A

L23: increase sensitivity –> increase the sensitivity

L112: 50 GeV. It is –> 50 GeV. mT is

L149: for –> on

L157: Per-bin –> Per bin

L166: ..reaching up to 20%… –> .. reaching values up to 20%…

L416-417: this sentence is not clear. Do you mean “compared to what reported in Ref. [14] ?”