Top-quark and Higgs boson perspectives at heavy-ion colliders

The perspectives for measuring the top quark and the Higgs boson in nuclear collisions at the LHC and Future Circular Collider (FCC) are summarized. Perturbative QCD calculations at (N)NLO accuracy, including nuclear parton distribution functions, are used to determine their cross sections and visible yields after standard analysis cuts in PbPb and pPb collisions at the LHC (sNN=5.5,8.8 TeV) and FCC (sNN=39,63 TeV). In their “cleanest” decay channels, tt¯→bb¯2ℓ2ν and H→γγ; 4ℓ, about 103 (105) top-quark and 10 (103) Higgs-boson events are expected at the LHC (FCC) for their total nominal integrated luminosities. Whereas the tt¯ observation is clearcut at both colliders, evidence for Higgs production, perfectly possible at the FCC, requires integrating ×30 more luminosities at the LHC.