No Arabic abstract
For the Standard Model extended with a real scalar singlet field, the modification of the heavy Higgs signal due to interference with the continuum background and the off-shell light Higgs contribution is studied for gg --> ZZ, WW --> 4 lepton processes at the Large Hadron Collider. Interference effects can range from O(10%) to O(1) effects for integrated cross sections. Despite a strong cancellation between the heavy Higgs-continuum and the heavy Higgs-light Higgs interference, the full interference is clearly non-negligible and modifies the heavy Higgs line shape. A |M_VV - M_h2| < Gamma_h2 cut mitigates interference effects to O(10%) or less. A public program that allows to simulate the full interference is presented.
The resonance-continuum interference between the SM Higgs search signal process gg --> H --> VV (V=W,Z) and the irreducible background process gg --> VV is studied at leading order for integrated cross sections and differential distributions in pp collisions at sqrt{s}=7 TeV and 14 TeV for M_H=400 GeV. Leptonic weak boson decays are included, and realistic experimental selection cuts are applied.
A detailed study of Higgs interference effects at the one-loop level in the 1-Higgs-Singlet extension of the Standard Model (1HSM) is presented for the WW and tt decay modes with fully leptonic WW decay. We explore interference effects for benchmark points with a heavy Higgs mass that significantly exceeds 2*m_t. In the WW channel, the Higgs signal and the interfering continuum background are loop induced. In the tt channel, which features a tree-level background, we also calculate the interference with the one-loop background, which, due to the appearance of the absorptive part, is found to dominate the normalisation and shape of differential Higgs distributions and should therefore be considered in experimental analyses. The commonly used geometric average K-factor approximation K_interference ~ (K_Higgs*K_background)^(1/2) is not appropriate. We calculate with massive top and bottom quarks. Our 1HSM and SM implementation in Sherpa+OpenLoops is publicly available and can be used as parton-level integrator or event generator.
We study the decay of a heavy Higgs boson into a light Higgs pair at one loop in the singlet extension of the Standard Model. To this purpose, we construct several renormalization schemes for the extended Higgs sector of the model. We apply these schemes to calculate the heavy-to-light Higgs decay width at next-to-leading order electroweak accuracy, and demonstrate that certain prescriptions lead to gauge-dependent results. We comprehensively examine how the NLO predictions depend on the relevant singlet model parameters, with emphasis on the trademark behavior of the quantum effects, and how these change under different renormalization schemes and a variable renormalization scale. Once all present constraints on the model are included, we find mild NLO corrections, typically of few percent, and with small theoretical uncertainties.
We show how in the standard electroweak model three $SU(2)_L$ Nambu monopoles, each carrying electromagnetic (EM) and Z- magnetic fluxes, can merge (through Z-strings) with a single $U(1)_Y$ Dirac monopole to yield a composite monopole that only carries EM magnetic flux. Compatibility with the Dirac quantization condition requires this composite monopole to carry six quanta ($12 pi /e$) of magnetic charge, independent of the electroweak mixing angle $theta_w$. The Dirac monopole is not regular at the origin and the energy of the composite monopole is therefore divergent. We discuss how this problem is cured by embedding $U(1)_Y$ in a grand unified group such as $SU(5)$. A second composite configuration with only one Nambu monopole and a colored $U(1)_Y$ Dirac monopole that has minimal EM charge of $4pi/e$ is also described. Finally, there exists a configuration with an EM charge of $8pi/e$ as well as screened color magnetic charge.
We present results from a state-of-the-art fit of electroweak precision observables and Higgs-boson signal-strength measurements performed using 7 and 8 TeV data from the Large Hadron Collider. Based on the HEPfit package, our study updates the traditional fit of electroweak precision observables and extends it to include Higgs-boson measurements. As a result we obtain constraints on new physics corrections to both electroweak observables and Higgs-boson couplings. We present the projected accuracy of the fit taking into account the expected sensitivities at future colliders.