No Arabic abstract
We discuss the correlation between dark matter and Higgs decays in gauge theories where the dark matter is predicted from anomaly cancellation. In these theories, the Higgs responsible for the breaking of the gauge symmetry generates the mass for the dark matter candidate. We investigate the Higgs decays in the minimal gauge theory for Baryon number. After imposing the dark matter density and direct detection constraints, we find that the new Higgs can have a large branching ratio into two photons or into dark matter. Furthermore, we discuss the production channels and the unique signatures at the Large Hadron Collider.
We review scenarios in which the particles that account for the Dark Matter (DM) in the Universe interact only through their couplings with the Higgs sector of the theory, the so-called Higgs-portal models. In a first step, we use a general and model-independent approach in which the DM particles are singlets with spin $0,frac12$ or $1$, and assume a minimal Higgs sector with the presence of only the Standard Model (SM) Higgs particle observed at the LHC. In a second step, we discuss non-minimal scenarios in which the spin-$frac12$ DM particle is accompanied by additional lepton partners and consider several possibilities like sequential, singlet-doublet and vector-like leptons. In a third step, we examine the case in which it is the Higgs sector of the theory which is enlarged either by a singlet scalar or pseudoscalar field, an additional two Higgs doublet field or by both; in this case, the matter content is also extended in several ways. Finally, we investigate the case of supersymmetric extensions of the SM with neutralino DM, focusing on the possibility that the latter couples mainly to the neutral Higgs particles of the model which then serve as the main portals for DM phenomenology. In all these scenarios, we summarize and update the present constraints and future prospects from the collider physics perspective, namely from the determination of the SM Higgs properties at the LHC and the search for its invisible decays into DM, and the search for heavier Higgs bosons and the DM companion particles at high-energy colliders. We then compare these results with the constraints and prospects obtained from the cosmological relic abundance as well as from direct and indirect DM searches in astroparticle physics experiments. The complementarity of collider and astroparticle DM searches is investigated in all the considered models.
We investigate the possible collider signatures of a new Higgs in simple extensions of the Standard Model where baryon number is a local symmetry spontaneously broken at the low scale. We refer to this new Higgs as Baryonic Higgs. This Higgs has peculiar properties since it can decay into all Standard Model particles, the leptophobic gauge boson, and the vector-like quarks present in these theories to ensure anomaly cancellation. We investigate in detail the constraints from the $gamma gamma$, $Z gamma$, $Z Z$, and $W W$ searches at the Large Hadron Collider, needed to find a lower bound on the scale at which baryon number is spontaneously broken. The di-photon channel turns out to be a very sensitive probe in the case of small scalar mixing and can severely constrain the baryonic scale. We also study the properties of the leptophobic gauge boson in order to understand the testability of these theories at the LHC.
We perform a systematic analysis of models with GeV-scale dark matter coupled to baryons and leptons. Such theories provide a natural framework to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe. We find that only a few baryonic dark matter models are free from tree-level proton decay without explicitly imposing baryon number conservation. We enumerate those cases and provide a brief overview of their phenomenology. We then focus on a leptonic dark matter model for a more detailed discussion of the baryon asymmetry generation via leptogenesis, the symmetry restoration in the dark sector and the expected dark matter annihilation signals in indirect detection experiments.
Two major problems call for an extension of the Standard Model (SM): the hierarchy problem in the Higgs sector and the dark matter in the Universe. The discovery of a Higgs boson with mass of about 125 GeV was clearly the most significant piece of news from CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In addition to representing the ultimate triumph of the SM, it shed new light on the hierarchy problem and opened up new ways of probing new physics. The various measurements performed at Run I of the LHC constrain the Higgs couplings to SM particles as well as invisible and undetected decays. In this thesis, the impact of the LHC Higgs results on various new physics scenarios is assessed, carefully taking into account uncertainties and correlations between them. Generic modifications of the Higgs coupling strengths, possibly arising from extended Higgs sectors or higher-dimensional operators, are considered. Furthermore, specific new physics models are tested. This includes, in particular, the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. While a Higgs boson has been found, no sign of beyond the SM physics was observed at Run I of the LHC in spite of the large number of searches performed by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. The implications of the negative results obtained in these searches constitute another important part of this thesis. First, supersymmetric models with a dark matter candidate are investigated in light of the negative searches for supersymmetry at the LHC using a so-called simplified model approach. Second, tools using simulated events to constrain any new physics scenario from the LHC results are presented. Moreover, during this thesis the selection criteria of several beyond the SM analyses have been reimplemented in the MadAnalysis 5 framework and made available in a public database.
We explore the LHC phenomenology of dark matter (DM) pair production in association with a 125 GeV Higgs boson. This signature, dubbed `mono-Higgs, appears as a single Higgs boson plus missing energy from DM particles escaping the detector. We perform an LHC background study for mono-Higgs signals at $sqrt{s} = 8$ and $14$ TeV for four Higgs boson decay channels: $gammagamma$, $b bar b$, and $ZZ^* to 4ell$, $ellell j j$. We estimate the LHC sensitivities to a variety of new physics scenarios within the frameworks of both effective operators and simplified models. For all these scenarios, the $gammagamma$ channel provides the best sensitivity, whereas the $bbar b$ channel suffers from a large $t bar t$ background. Mono-Higgs is unlike other mono-$X$ searches ($X$=jet, photon, etc.), since the Higgs boson is unlikely to be radiated as initial state radiation, and therefore probes the underlying DM vertex directly.