An accord specifying a unique set of conventions for supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model together with generic file structures for 1) supersymmetric model specifications and input parameters, 2) electroweak scale supersymmetric mass and coupling spectra, and 3) decay tables is presented, to provide a universal interface between spectrum calculation programs, decay packages, and high energy physics event generators. 1 skands@fnal.gov. See home.fnal.gov/∼skands/slha/ for updates and examples.

Now that the Higgs boson has been observed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, the next important step would be to measure accurately its properties to establish the details of the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism. Among the measurements which need to be performed, the determination of the Higgs self-coupling in processes where the Higgs boson is produced in pairs is of utmost importance. In this paper, we discuss the various processes which allow for the measurement of the trilinear Higgs coupling: double Higgs production in gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, double Higgs-strahlung and associated production with a top quark pair. We first evaluate the production cross sections for these processes at the LHC with center-of-mass energies ranging from the present √ s = 8 TeV to √ s = 100 TeV, and discuss their sensitivity to the trilinear Higgs coupling. We include the various higher order QCD radiative corrections, at next-to-leading order for gluon and vector boson fusion and at next-to-next-to-leading order for associated double Higgs production with a gauge boson. The theoretical uncertainties on these cross sections are estimated. Finally, we discuss the various channels which could allow for the detection of the double Higgs production signal at the LHC and estimate their potential to probe the trilinear Higgs coupling.

Abstract:We reconsider the effective Lagrangian that describes a light Higgs-like boson and better clarify a few issues which were not exhaustively addressed in the previous literature. In particular we highlight the strategy to determine whether the dynamics responsible for the electroweak symmetry breaking is weakly or strongly interacting. We also discuss how the effective Lagrangian can be implemented into automatic tools for the calculation of Higgs decay rates and production cross sections.

We present the Fortran code SDECAY, which calculates the decay widths and branching ratios of all the supersymmetric particles in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, including higher order effects. Besides the usual two-body decays of fermions and gauginos and the three-body decays of charginos, neutralinos and gluinos, we have also implemented the three-body decays of top squarks, and even the four-body decays of the top squark; the important loop-induced decay modes are also included. The QCD corrections to the two-body decays involving strongly interacting particles and the dominant components of the electroweak corrections to all decay modes are implemented. * The code can be obtained at the