No Arabic abstract
A light vector boson, Z_d, associated with a dark sector U(1)_d gauge group has been introduced to explain certain astrophysical observations as well as low energy laboratory anomalies. In such models, the Higgs boson may decay into X+Z_d, where X=Z, Z_d or gamma. Here, we provide estimates of those decay rates as functions of the Z_d coupling through either mass-mixing (e.g. via an enlarged Higgs mechanism) or through heavy new fermion loops and examine the implied LHC phenomenology. Our studies focus on the higher m_{Z_d} case, > several GeV, where the rates are potentially measurable at the LHC, for interesting regions of parameter spaces, at a level complementary to low energy experimental searches for the Z_d. We also show how measurement of the Z_d polarization (longitudinal versus transverse) can be used to distinguish the physics underlying these rare decays.
The Minimal Supersymmetric SO(10) GUT has developed into a fully realistic theory in which not only are the gauge couplings unified but the known fermion spectrum and mixing matrices could fit accurately using the latitude introduced by inclusion of quantum corrections to the GUT-effective MSSM-SM matching conditions. The fits yield predictions about the nature of the sparticle spectrum on the basis of the required threshold corrections. This indicated a necessarily large value for $A_0$ in 2008 : well before Higgs discovery at 126 GeV made it a commonplace assumption. GUT scale threshold corrections to the normalization of the emergent effective MSSM Higgs ameliorate the long standing Susy GUT puzzle of fast dimension five operator mediated proton decay. Numerical investigation indicates that B-violation rates below or near the current experimental upper limits are feasible in fully realistic models. Our results imply that UV completion models with large numbers of fields, like Kaluza-Klein models or String Theory, must be able to compute threshold corrections to be considered quantitative theories and not just fables. Required improvements in the fitting procedure are discussed. A generalization of the NMSGUT by gauging the flavour symmetry of the kinetic terms,while retaining renormalizability and the successful MSGUT symmetry breaking patterns, may allow dynamical generation of the observed Yukawa structure of the MSSM via the spontaneous breaking of the full gauge symmetry down to the MSSM at the unification scale. Focus on the emergence of the MSSM Higgs from the multiple Higgs doublets in the GUT thus provides a crucial window to view the energetically remote UV dynamics specified in fully calculable and realistic MSGUTs.
In this work we present the computation of the Higgs decay into a photon and a $Z^0$ boson at one-loop level in the framework of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). The numerical evaluation of this decay width was performed within the framework of the SloopS code, orginally developped for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) but which was recently extended to deal with the NMSSM. Thanks to the high level of automation of SloopS all contributions from the various sector of the NMSSM are consistently taken into account, in particular the non-diagonal chargino and sfermion contributions. We then explored the NMSSM parameter space, using HiggsBounds and HiggsSignals, to investigate to which extent these signal can be enhanced.
The clockwork mechanism allows extremely weak interactions and small mass scales to be understood in terms of the structure of a theory. A natural application of the clockwork mechanism is to the freeze-in mechanism for dark matter production. Here we consider a Higgs portal freeze-in dark matter model based on a scalar clockwork sector with a mass scale which is less than the Higgs boson mass. The dark matter scalar is the lightest scalar of the clockwork sector. Freeze-in dark matter is produced by the decay of thermal Higgs bosons to the clockwork dark matter scalars. We show that the mass of the dark matter scalar is typically in the 1-10 keV range and may be warm enough to have an observable effect on perturbation growth and Lyman-$alpha$ observations. Clockwork Higgs portal freeze-in models have a potentially observable collider phenomenology, with the Higgs boson decaying to missing energy in the form of pairs of long-lived clockwork sector scalars, plus a distribution of different numbers of quark and lepton particle-antiparticle pairs. The branching ratio to different numbers of quark and lepton pairs is determined by the clockwork sector parameters (the number of clockwork scalars $N$ and the clockwork charge $q$), which could therefore be determined experimentally if such Higgs decay modes are observed. In the case of a minimal Standard Model observable sector, the combination of nucleosynthesis and Lyman-$alpha$ constraints is likely to exclude on-shell Higgs decays to clockwork scalars, although off-shell Higgs decays would still be possible. On-shell Higgs decays to clockwork scalars can be consistent with cosmological constraints in simple extensions of the Standard Model with light singlet scalars.
We discuss flavor violation in large N Composite Higgs models. We focus on scenarios in which the masses of the standard model fermions are controlled by hierarchical mixing parameters, as in models of Partial Compositeness. We argue that a separation of scales between flavor and Higgs dynamics can be employed to parametrically suppress dipole and penguin operators, and thus effectively remove the experimental constraints arising from the lepton sector and the neutron EDM. The dominant source of flavor violation beyond the standard model is therefore controlled by 4-fermion operators, whose Wilson coefficients can be made compatible with data provided the Higgs dynamics approaches a walking regime in the IR. Models consistent with all flavor and electroweak data can be obtained with a new physics scale within the reach of the LHC. Explicit scenarios may be realized in a 5D framework, the new key ingredient being the introduction of flavor branes where the wave functions of the bulk fermions end.
In supersymmetric theories, the decays of the neutral CP-even and CP-odd as well as the charged Higgs bosons into scalar quarks, in particular into top and bottom squarks, can be dominant if they are kinematically allowed. We calculate the QCD corrections to these decay modes in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, including all quark mass terms and squark mixing. These corrections turn out to be rather large, altering the decay widths by an amount which can be larger than 50%. The corrections can be either positive or negative, and depend strongly on the mass of the gluino. We also discuss the QCD corrections to the decays of heavy scalar quarks into light scalar quarks and Higgs bosons.