EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C, cilt.53, sa.2, ss.329-347, 2008 (SCI-Expanded)
We present the potential for discovering the standard model Higgs boson produced via the vector-boson fusion mechanism. We considered the decay of Higgs bosons to the W(+)W(-)final state, with both W-bosons subsequently decaying leptonically. The main background is t (t) over bar produced in association with one or more jets. This study is based on a full simulation of the CMS detector. The result is that a signal of 5 sigma significance can be obtained with an integrated luminosity of 12-72 fb(-1) stop for Higgs boson masses in the range 130 < m(H)< 200 GeV. In addition, the major background can be measured directly to 7% from the data with an integrated luminosity of 30 fb(-1) stop. We also suggest a method to determine the Higgs mass using template transverse mass distributions.