No Arabic abstract
The simplest extension of the Standard Model is to add a gauge singlet scalar, $S$: the singlet extended Standard Model. In the absence of a $Z_2$ symmetry $Srightarrow -S$ and if the new scalar is sufficiently heavy, this model can lead to resonant double Higgs production, significantly increasing the production rate over the Standard Model prediction. While searches for this signal are being performed, it is important to have benchmark points and models with which to compare the experimental results. In this paper we determine these benchmarks by maximizing the double Higgs production rate at the LHC in the singlet extended Standard Model. We find that, within current constraints, the branching ratio of the new scalar into two Standard Model-like Higgs bosons can be upwards of $0.76$, and the double Higgs rate can be increased upwards of 30 times the Standard Model prediction.
Higgs pair production at the LHC from gluon fusion is small in the Standard Model, but can be enhanced in models where a resonant enhancement is allowed. We examine the effect of a resonant contribution from a second scalar arising in a model with a gauge singlet scalar field in addition to the usual SU(2) scalar doublet, with mass up to $M_H$~600 GeV and discuss the interference effects in double Higgs production. We compute the NLO QCD corrections in the large $m_t$ limit and show that they can significantly distort kinematic distributions near the resonance peak.
Models of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics, like the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), often involve an extended Higgs sector, giving rise to extra neutral or charged Higgs bosons. The discovery reach expected from simulation studies for such additional Higgs particles is presented for the ATLAS, CMS and FP420 detectors at the LHC. Emphasis is put on production and decay modes involving heavy flavour b and tau particles, which are enhanced in large regions of BSM parameter space. The LHC experiments are indeed particularly well equipped to tackle final states containing heavy flavour.
We study the enhancement of the di-Higgs production cross section resulting from the resonant decay of a heavy Higgs boson at hadron colliders in a model with a Higgs singlet. This enhancement of the double Higgs production rate is crucial in understanding the structure of the scalar potential and we determine the maximum allowed enhancement such that the electroweak minimum is a global minimum. The di-Higgs production enhancement can be as large as a factor of ~ 18 (13) for the mass of the heavy Higgs around 270 (420) GeV relative to the Standard Model rate at 14 TeV for parameters corresponding to a global electroweak minimum.
WZ production is an important process at the LHC because it probes the non-Abelian structureof electroweak interactions and it is a background process for many new physics searches. In the quest for new physics, polarization observables of the W and Z bosons can play an important role. They can be extracted from measurements and can be calculated using the Standard Model. In this contribution, we define fiducial polarization observables of the W and Z bosons and discuss the effects of next-to-leading order electroweak and QCD corrections in the Standard Model.
Gauge singlet extensions of the Standard Model (SM) scalar sector may help remedy its theoretical and phenomenological shortcomings while solving outstanding problems in cosmology. Depending on the symmetries of the scalar potential, such extensions may provide a viable candidate for the observed relic density of cold dark matter or a strong first order electroweak phase transition needed for electroweak baryogenesis. Using the simplest extension of the SM scalar sector with one real singlet field, we analyze the generic implications of a singlet-extended scalar sector for Higgs boson phenomenology at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We consider two broad scenarios: one in which the neutral SM Higgs and singlet mix and the other in which no mixing occurs and the singlet can be a dark matter particle. For the first scenario, we analyze constraints from electroweak precision observables and their implications for LHC Higgs phenomenology. For models in which the singlet is stable, we determine the conditions under which it can yield the observed relic density, compute the cross sections for direct detection in recoil experiments, and discuss the corresponding signatures at the LHC.