Measurements of Higgs boson production via gluon-gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion using <i>H </i>→ <i>WW^* </i>→<i> ℓνℓν</i> decays in <i>pp</i> collisions with the ATLAS detector and their effective field theory interpretations

Higgs boson production cross-sections via gluon-gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion in proton-proton collisions are measured in the <i>H → WW^* → ℓνℓν</i> decay channel. The Large Hadron Collider delivered proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV between 2015 and 2018, which were recorded by the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140fb^-1. The total cross-sections for Higgs boson production by gluon-gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion times the <i>H </i>→ <i>WW^*</i> branching ratio are measured to be $12.4^{+1.3}_{-1.2}\,\textrm{pb}$ and $0.79^{+0.18}_{-0.16}\,\textrm{pb}$, respectively, in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. Higgs boson production is further characterised through measurements of Simplified Template Cross-Sections in a total of fifteen kinematic fiducial regions. A new scheme of kinematic fiducial regions has been introduced to enhance the sensitivity to CP-violating effects in Higgs boson interactions. Both schemes are used to constrain CP-even and CP-odd dimension-six operators in the Standard Model effective field theory.