Search for exclusive Higgs and Z boson decays to φγ and ργ with the ATLAS detector

Following the discovery of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson, efforts are now focusing on the full characterisation of its properties. Despite the progress made, little is still known about the Higgs boson couplings to light fermions from the first and second generations. Direct measurements of the Higgs boson couplings to light quarks are plagued by small rates in the SM making them difficult to separate from the huge hadronic backgrounds. This talk will describe the recent ATLAS analysis which searched for such decays involving the φ and ρ mesons obtaining 95% confidence level limits on the branching fractions of $4.8\times10^{-4}$ and $8.8\times10^{-4}$ respectively.