Re-weighing the evidence for a Higgs boson in dileptonic W-boson decays

We reconsider observables for discovering and measuring the mass of a Higgs boson via its di-leptonic decays: H --> WW* --> l nu l nu. We define an observable generalizing the transverse mass that takes into account the fact that one of the intermediate W-bosons is likely to be on-shell. We compare this new variable with existing ones and argue that it gives a significant improvement for discovery in the region m_h < 2 m_W.