Light Signals from a Lighter Higgs

Patrick J. Fox; Neal Weiner

doi:10.1007/JHEP08(2018)025

paper

Light Signals from a Lighter Higgs

arXiv:1710.07649 · doi:10.1007/JHEP08(2018)025

Abstract

With the Higgs search program already quite mature, there is the exciting possibility of discovering a new particle with rates near that of the SM Higgs. We consider models with a signal in $γ γ$ below the SM Higgs mass, taking the recent $2.9 σ$ (local) CMS excess at 95 GeV as a target. We discuss singlet models with additional vectorlike matter, but argue that a Type-I two Higgs doublet model provides a more economical scenario. In such a setup, going into regions of moderate-to-strong fermiophobia, the enhanced $γ γ$ branching ratio allows signals from $V H$ +VBF production to yield $σ \times B R_{γ γ}$ comparable to total SM rates. Light $H$ production can be dominated via rare top decays $t \to b H^{+} \to b W^{*} H$ , which provides an alternate explanation of the excess. We consider this in the context of other Higgs anomalies, namely the LEP Higgs excess near the same mass, and excesses in $t t ˉ h$ searches at Tevatron and LHC. We find that with $140 GeV < m_{H^{+}} < 160 GeV$ , $tan β \sim 5$ and a coupling to gauge bosons of $sin^{2} δ \sim 0.1$ , such a scenario can produce all the excesses simultanously, where $tt h$ arise from contamination from the rare top decays, as previously proposed. An implication of the Type-I scenario is that any $γ γ$ excess should be associated with additional elements that could reduce background, including $b$ -jets, forward jets or signs of vector boson production.

15 pages, 3 figures

Light Signals from a Lighter Higgs

Abstract

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