No Arabic abstract
We propose a new way of explaining the observed Higgs mass, within the cosmological relaxation framework. The key feature distinguishing it from other scanning scenarios is that the scanning field has a non-canonical kinetic term, whose role is to terminate the scan around the desired Higgs mass value. We propose a concrete realisation of this idea with two new singlet fields, one that scans the Higgs mass, and another that limits the time window in which the scan is possible. Within the provided time period, the scanning field does not significantly evolve after the Higgs field gets close to the Standard Model value, due to particle production friction.
We explore non-standard Higgs phenomenology in the Gaugephobic Higgs model in which the Higgs can be lighter than the usually quoted current experimental bound. The Higgs propagates in the bulk of a 5D space-time and Electroweak Symmetry Breaking occurs by a combination of boundary conditions in the extra dimension and an elementary Higgs. The Higgs can thus have a significantly suppressed coupling to the other Standard Model fields. A large enough suppression can be found to escape all limits and allow for a Higgs of any mass, which would be associated with the discovery of W and Z Kaluza-Klein resonances at the LHC. The Higgs can be precisely discovered at B-factories while the LHC would be insensitive to it due to high backgrounds. In this letter we study the Higgs discovery mode in Upsilon(3S), Upsilon(2S), and Upsilon(1S) decays, and the model parameter space that will be probed by BaBar, Belle, and CLEO data. In the absence of an early discovery of a heavy Higgs at the LHC, A Super-B factory would be an excellent option to further probe this region.
We summarize the possible processes which may be used to search for a Higgs boson, of mass in the range 114-130 GeV, at the LHC. We discuss, in detail, two processes with rapidity gaps: exclusive Higgs production with tagged outgoing protons and production by Weak Boson Fusion, in each case taking H -> bbbar as the signal. We make an extensive study of all possible bbbar backgrounds, and discuss the relevant experimental issues. We emphasize the special features of these signals, and of their background processes, and show that they could play an important role in identifying a light Higgs boson at the LHC.
The data taken in Run II at the LHC have started to probe Higgs boson production at high transverse momentum. Future data will provide a large sample of events with boosted Higgs boson topologies, allowing for a detailed understanding of electroweak Higgs boson plus two-jet production, and in particular the vector-boson fusion mode (VBF). We perform a detailed comparison of precision calculations for Higgs boson production in this channel, with particular emphasis on large Higgs boson transverse momenta, and on the jet radius dependence of the cross section. We study fixed-order predictions at NLO and NNLO QCD, and compare the results to NLO plus parton shower (NLOPS) matched calculations. The impact of the NNLO corrections on the central predictions is mild, with inclusive scale uncertainties of the order of a few percent, which can increase with the imposition of kinematic cuts. We find good agreement between the fixed-order and matched calculations in non-Sudakov regions, and the various NLOPS predictions also agree well in the Sudakov regime. We analyze backgrounds to VBF Higgs boson production stemming from associated production, and from gluon-gluon fusion. At high Higgs boson transverse momenta, the $Delta y_{jj}$ and/or $m_{jj}$ cuts typically used to enhance the VBF signal over background lead to a reduced efficiency. We examine this effect as a function of the jet radius and using different definitions of the tagging jets. QCD radiative corrections increase for all Higgs production modes with increasing Higgs boson $p_T$, but the proportionately larger increase in the gluon fusion channel results in a decrease of the gluon-gluon fusion background to electroweak Higgs plus two jet production upon requiring exclusive two-jet topologies. We study this effect in detail and contrast in particular a central jet veto with a global jet multiplicity requirement.
Within the supersymmetric SO(10) grand unified theory (GUT), a new mechanism, giving the light Higgs doublet as a pseudo-Goldstone mode, is suggested. Realizing this mechanism, we present an explicit model with fully realistic phenomenology. In particular, desirable symmetry breaking and natural all-order hierarchy are achieved. The constructed model allows one to have a realistic fermion pattern, nucleon stability, and successful gauge coupling unification. The suggested mechanism opens prospects in the field for a novel $SO(10)$ GUT model building and for further investigations.
The zero-width approximation (ZWA) restricts the intermediate unstable particle state to the mass shell and, when combined with the decorrelation approximation, fully factorizes the production and decay of unstable particles. The ZWA uncertainty is expected to be of O(Gamma/M), where M and Gamma are the mass and width of the unstable particle. We review the ZWA and demonstrate that errors can be much larger than expected if a significant modification of the Breit-Wigner lineshape occurs. A thorough examination of the recently discovered candidate Standard Model Higgs boson is in progress. For M_H ~ 125 GeV, one has Gamma_H/M_H < 10^(-4), which suggests an excellent accuracy of the ZWA. We show that this is not always the case. The inclusion of off-shell contributions is essential to obtain an accurate Higgs signal normalization at the 1% precision level. For gg -> H -> VV, V = W,Z, O(5-10%) corrections occur due to an enhanced Higgs signal in the region M_VV > 2 M_V, where also sizable Higgs-continuum interference occurs. We discuss how experimental selection cuts can be used to suppress this region in search channels where the Higgs mass cannot be reconstructed. We note that H -> VV decay modes in non-gluon-fusion channels are similarly affected.