h→μ+μ- via tt-bar h production at the LHC

In this work, we examine the process at the LHC in which a Higgs boson is produced in association with a tt-bar pair and subsequently decays to a pair of muons. We show that the statistical significance for the discovery of a light, Standard Model Higgs boson with a mass around 120 GeV in this channel is comparable to those for other processes (gluon fusion, weak-boson fusion) in which the Higgs decays to a muon pair. Combining all three of these channels, we show that evidence for a Higgs boson with a mass in the range 115 GeV<mh<130 GeV could be obtained at the 3σ significance level with an integrated luminosity of 300 fb-1. We also calculate the enhancement factor to the tt-bar h cross-section that would be needed to discover a non-standard Higgs boson in this channel.