No Arabic abstract
We present a new mechanism to generate large $A$-terms at tree-level in the MSSM through the use of superpotential operators. The mechanism trivially resolves the $A/m^2$ problem which plagues models with conventional, loop-induced $A$-terms. We study both MFV and non-MFV models; in the former, naturalness motivates us to construct a UV completion using Seiberg duality. Finally, we study the phenomenology of these models when they are coupled to minimal gauge mediation. We find that after imposing the Higgs mass constraint, they are largely out of reach of LHC Run I, but they will be probed at Run II. Their fine tuning is basically the minimum possible in the MSSM.
We develop diagnostic tools that would provide incontrovertible evidence for the presence of more than one Higgs boson near 125 GeV in the LHC data.
We review the possible role that multi-Higgs models may play in our understanding of the dynamics of a heavy 4th sequential generation of fermions. We describe the underlying ingredients of such models, focusing on two Higgs doublets, and discuss how they may effectively accommodate the low energy phenomenology of such new heavy fermionic degrees of freedom. We also discuss the constraints on these models from precision electroweak data as well as from flavor physics and the implications for collider searches of the Higgs particles and of the 4th generation fermions, bearing in mind the recent observation of a light Higgs with a mass of ~125 GeV.
We describe a hybrid framework for electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), in which the Higgs mechanism is combined with a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio mechanism. The model introduces an unconstrained scalar (i.e., acts as fundamental but not the SM field) and a strongly coupled doublet of heavy quarks with a mass around 500 GeV, which forms a condensate at a compositeness scale Lambda ~ O(1) TeV. This setup is matched at that scale to a tightly constrained hybrid two Higgs doublet model, where both the composite and unconstrained scalars participate in EWSB. This allows us to get a good candidate for the recently observed 125 GeV scalar which has properties very similar to the Standard Model Higgs. The heavier (mostly composite) CP-even scalar has a mass around 500 GeV, while the pseudoscalar and the charged Higgs particles have masses in the range 200 -300 GeV.
We assess the extent to which various constrain
The ATLAS and CMS experiments have recently announced the discovery of a Higgs-like resonance with mass close to 125 GeV. Overall, the data is consistent with a Standard Model (SM)-like Higgs boson. Such a particle may arise in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM with average stop masses of the order of the TeV scale and a sizable stop mixing parameter. In this article we discuss properties of the SM-like Higgs production and decay rates induced by the possible presence of light staus and light stops. Light staus can affect the decay rate of the Higgs into di-photons and, in the case of sizable left-right mixing, induce an enhancement in this production channel up to $sim$ 50% of the Standard Model rate. Light stops may induce sizable modifications of the Higgs gluon fusion production rate and correlated modifications to the Higgs diphoton decay. Departures from SM values of the bottom-quark and tau-lepton couplings to the Higgs can be obtained due to Higgs mixing effects triggered by light third generation scalar superpartners. We describe the phenomenological implications of light staus on searches for light stops and non-standard Higgs bosons. Finally, we discuss the current status of the search for light staus produced in association with sneutrinos, in final states containing a $W$ gauge boson and a pair of $tau$s.