Precision measurements of the Higgs boson properties at the LHC provide relevant constraints on possible weak-scale extensions of the Standard Model (SM). In the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) these constraints seem to su
ggest that all the additional, non-SM-like Higgs bosons should be heavy, with masses larger than about 400 GeV. This article shows that such results do not hold when the theory approaches the conditions for alignment independent of decoupling, where the lightest CP-even Higgs boson has SM-like tree-level couplings to fermions and gauge bosons, independently of the non-standard Higgs boson masses. The combination of current bounds from direct Higgs boson searches at the LHC, along with the alignment conditions, have a significant impact on the allowed MSSM parameter space yielding light additional Higgs bosons. In particular, after ensuring the correct mass for the lightest CP-even Higgs boson, we find that precision measurements and direct searches are complementary, and may soon be able to probe the region of non-SM-like Higgs boson with masses below the top quark pair mass threshold of 350 GeV and low to moderate values of $tanbeta$.
In models with an extended Higgs sector there exists an alignment limit, in which the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mimics the Standard Model Higgs. The alignment limit is commonly associated with the decoupling limit, where all non-standard scalars a
re significantly heavier than the $Z$ boson. However, alignment can occur irrespective of the mass scale of the rest of the Higgs sector. In this work we discuss the general conditions that lead to alignment without decoupling, therefore allowing for the existence of additional non-standard Higgs bosons at the weak scale. The values of $tanbeta$ for which this happens are derived in terms of the effective Higgs quartic couplings in general two-Higgs-doublet models as well as in supersymmetric theories, including the MSSM and the NMSSM. Moreover, we study the information encoded in the variations of the SM Higgs-fermion couplings to explore regions in the $m_A - tanbeta$ parameter space.
We study extensions of the standard model by one generation of vector-like leptons with non-standard hypercharges, which allow for a sizable modification of the h -> gamma gamma decay rate for new lepton masses in the 300 GeV - 1 TeV range. We analyz
e vaccum stability implications for different hypercharges. Effects in h -> Z gamma are typically much smaller than in h -> gamma gamma, but distinct among the considered hypercharge assignments. Non-standard hypercharges constrain or entirely forbid possible mixing operators with standard model leptons. As a consequence, the leading contributions to the experimentally strongly constrained electric dipole moments of standard model fermions are only generated at the two loop level by the new CP violating sources of the considered setups. We derive the bounds from dipole moments, electro-weak precision observables and lepton flavor violating processes, and discuss their implications. Finally, we examine the production and decay channels of the vector-like leptons at the LHC, and find that signatures with multiple light leptons or taus are already probing interesting regions of parameter space.
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 supersymme
tric 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.
Current Higgs data at the Large Hadron Collider is compatible with a SM signal at the 2$sigma$ level, but the central value of the signal strength in the diphoton channel is enhanced with respect to the SM expectation. If the enhancement resides in t
he diphoton partial decay width, the data could be accommodated in the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with highly mixed light staus. We revisit the issue of vacuum instability induced by large mixing in the stau sector, including effects of a radiatively-corrected tau Yukawa coupling. Further, we emphasize the importance of taking into account the $tanbeta$ dependence in the stability bound. While the metastability of the Universe constrains the possible enhancement in the Higgs to diphoton decay width in the light stau scenario, an increase of the order of 50% can be achieved in the region of large $tanbeta$. Larger enhancements may be obtained, but would require values of $tanbeta$ associated with non-perturbative values of the tau Yukawa coupling at scales below the GUT scale, thereby implying the presence of new physics beyond the MSSM.
The LHC has started to constrain supersymmetry-breaking parameters by setting bounds on possible colored particles at the weak scale. Moreover, constraints from Higgs physics, flavor physics, the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, as well as from
searches at LEP and the Tevatron have set additional bounds on these parameters. Renormalization Group Invariants (RGIs) provide a very useful way of representing the allowed parameter space by making direct connection with the values of these parameters at the messenger scale. Using a general approach, based on the pMSSM parametrization of the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters, we analyze the current experimental constraints to determine the probability distributions for the RGIs. As examples of their application, we use these distributions to analyze the question of Gaugino Mass Unification and to probabilistically determine the parameters of General and Minimal Gauge Mediation with arbitrary Higgs mass parameters at the Messenger Scale.
Measurements of the Higgs-boson production cross section at the LHC are an important tool for studying electroweak symmetry breaking at the quantum level, since the main production mechanism gg-->h is loop-suppressed in the Standard Model (SM). Higgs
production in extra-dimensional extensions of the SM is sensitive to the Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the quarks, which can be exchanged as virtual particles in the loop. In the context of the minimal Randall-Sundrum (RS) model with bulk fields and a brane-localized Higgs sector, we derive closed analytical expressions for the gluon-gluon fusion process, finding that the effect of the infinite tower of virtual KK states can be described in terms of a simple function of the fundamental (5D) Yukawa matrices. Given a specific RS model, this will allow one to easily constrain the parameter space, once a Higgs signal has been established. We explain that discrepancies between existing calculations of Higgs production in RS models are related to the non-commutativity of two limits: taking the number of KK states to infinity and removing the regulator on the Higgs-boson profile, which is required in an intermediate step to make the relevant overlap integrals well defined. Even though the one-loop gg-->h amplitude is finite in RS scenarios with a brane-localized Higgs sector, it is important to introduce a consistent ultraviolet regulator in order to obtain the correct result.
We analyze the stability of the vacuum and the electroweak phase transition in the NMSSM close to the Peccei-Quinn symmetry limit. This limit contains light Dark Matter (DM) particles with a mass significantly smaller than the weak scale and also lig
ht CP-even and CP-odd Higgs bosons. Such light particles lead to a consistent relic density and facilitate a large spin-independent direct DM detection cross section, that may accommodate the recently reported signatures at the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments. Studying the one-loop effective potential at finite temperature, we show that when the lightest CP-even Higgs mass is of the order of a few GeV, the electroweak phase transition tends to become first order and strong. The inverse relationship between the direct-detection cross-section and the lightest CP-even Higgs mass implies that a cross-section of the order of 10$^{-41}$ cm$^2$ is correlated with a strong first order phase transition.
We propose a scenario in which the Planck scale is dynamically linked to the electroweak scale induced by top condensation. The standard model field content, without the Higgs, is promoted to a 5D warped background. There is also an additional 5D fer
mion with the quantum numbers of the right-handed top. Localization of the zero-modes leads, at low energies, to a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model that also stabilizes the radion field dynamically thus explaining the hierarchy between the Planck scale and v_EW = 174 GeV. The top mass arises dynamically from the electroweak breaking condensate. The other standard model fermion masses arise naturally from higher-dimension operators, and the fermion mass hierarchies and flavor structure can be explained from the localization of the zero-modes in the extra dimension. If any other contributions to the radion potential except those directly related with electroweak symmetry breaking are engineered to be suppressed, the KK scale is predicted to be about two orders of magnitude above the electroweak scale rendering the model easily consistent with electroweak precision data. The model predicts a heavy (composite) Higgs with a mass of about 500 GeV and standard-model-like properties, and a vector-like quark with non-negligible mixing with the top quark and mass in the 1.6 - 2.9 TeV range. Both can be within the reach of the LHC. It also predicts a radion with a mass of a few GeV that is very weakly coupled to standard model matter.
Electroweak baryogenesis in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model may be realized within the light stop scenario, where the right-handed stop mass remains close to the top-quark mass to allow for a sufficiently strong first order
electroweak phase transition. All other supersymmetric scalars are much heavier to comply with the present bounds on the Higgs mass and the electron and neutron electric dipole moments. Heavy third generation scalars render it necessary to resum large logarithm contributions to perform a trustable Higgs mass calculation. We have studied the one--loop RGE improved effective theory below the heavy scalar mass scale and obtained reliable values of the Higgs mass. Moreover, assuming a common mass $tilde m$ for all heavy scalar particles, and values of all gaugino masses and the Higgsino mass parameter about the weak scale, and imposing gauge coupling unification, a two-loop calculation yields values of the mass $tilde m$ in the interval between three TeV and six hundred TeV. Furthermore for a stop mass around the top quark mass, this translates into an upper bound on the Higgs mass of about 150 GeV. The Higgs mass bound becomes even stronger, of about 129 GeV, for the range of stop and gaugino masses consistent with electroweak baryogenesis. The collider phenomenology implications of this scenario are discussed in some detail.
