Prospects for $\gamma\gamma\to$ Higgs observation in ultraperipheral ion collisions at the Future Circular Collider

We study the two-photon production of the Higgs boson, $\gamma\gamma\to H$, at the Future Circular Collider (FCC) in ultraperipheral PbPb and pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 39$ and 63 TeV. Signal and background events are generated with MadGraph-5, including $\gamma$ fluxes from the proton and lead ions in the equivalent photon approximation, yielding $\sigma(\gamma\gamma\to H)$ = 1.75 nb and 1.5 pb in PbPb and pPb collisions respectively. We analyse the H$\to b\bar{b}$ decay mode including realistic reconstruction efficiencies for the final-state $b$-jets, showered and hadronized with PYTHIA-8, as well as appropriate selection criteria to reduce the $\gamma\gamma\to b\bar{b},c\bar{c}$ continuum backgrounds. Observation of PbPb$\xrightarrow{\gamma\gamma}$(Pb)H(Pb) is achievable in the first year with the expected FCC integrated luminosities.