Role ofh→ηηin Intermediate-Mass Higgs Boson Searches at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

The dominance of h → ηη decay mode for the intermediate mass Higgs boson is highly motivated to solve the little hierarchy problem and to ease the tension with the precision data. However, the discovery modes for m h < ∼ 150 GeV, h → γγ and W/Zh → (ℓν/ℓ l)(b b), will be substantially affected. In this Letter, we show that h → ηη → 4b is complementary and we can use this decay mode to detect the intermediate Higgs boson at the LHC, via W h and Zh production. Requiring at least one charged lepton and 4 B-tags in the final state, we can identify a clean Higgs boson signal for m h < ∼ 150 GeV with a high significance and with a full Higgs mass reconstruction. We use the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model and the simplest little Higgs model for illustration.

Complex scalar dark mattervis-à-visCoGeNT, DAMA/LIBRA, and XENON100

“…In addition, model independent analyses of this mode have illustrated the sensitivity of the Tevatron and the LHC experiments to these exotic decay modes [73,74]. The effective production rates,…”

Can neutralinos in the MSSM and NMSSM scenarios still be light?

“…The light scalar/pseudoscalar are expected to decay predominantly into bb, τ + τ − or invisibly intoχ 0 1χ 0 1 . Therefore both the search for the invisible Higgs in the W fusion channel with a signature in two tagged jets and missing E T and the search for Higgs via W h 2 production with h 2 → h 1 h 1 → 4 j [57,58] are important channels at the LHC.…”

The NMSSM with and a moderate stop mass

“…This channel is likely to require a high luminosity, even if the gluon fusion cross section is unaffected by the mixing, because of the overwhelming SM backgrounds. The discovery potential for this mode, however, could be enhanced if the associated W/Zh production is considered, as it is pointed out in [20]. Other channels worth to be considered, as usual for light scalars, are s 2 → ZZ * /W W * and the loop induced decay s 2 → γγ.…”