Review of Central Exclusive Production of the Higgs Boson Beyond the Standard Model

We review activities in the field of theoretical, phenomenological and experimental studies related to the production of the Higgs boson in central exclusive processes at LHC in models beyond Standard Model. Prospects in the context of the Higgs boson discovery at LHC in 2012 and of proposals to build forward proton detectors at ATLAS and CMS side are summarized.

Exclusive MSSM Higgs production at the LHC after Run I

We investigate the prospects for Central Exclusive Production (CEP) of MSSM Higgs bosons at the LHC using forward proton detectors proposed to be installed at 220 m and 420 m distance around ATLAS and / or CMS. We summarize the situation after the first and very successful data taking period of the LHC. The discovery of a Higgs boson and results from searches for additional MSSM Higgs bosons from both the ATLAS and CMS experiments, based on data samples each corresponding to about 25 fb-1, have recently led to a proposal of new low-energy MSSM benchmark scenarios. The CEP signal cross section for the process H/h -> bb and its backgrounds are estimated in these new scenarios. We also make some comments about the experimental procedure if the proposed forward proton detectors are to be used to measure the CEP signal.

Exclusive production of the BSM Higgs bosons at the LHC

We review the prospects for Central Exclusive Production (CEP) of BSM Higgs bosons at the LHC using forward proton detectors proposed to be installed at 220 m and 420 m from the ATLAS and/ or CMS. Results are presented for MSSM in standard benchmark scenarios, in scenarios compatible with the Cold Dark Matter relic abundance and other precision measurements, and for SM with a fourth generation of fermions. We show that CEP can give a valuable information about spin-parity properties of the Higgs bosons.

Central Exclusive Production of BSM Higgs bosons at the LHC

The prospects for central exclusive diffractive (CED) production of MSSM Higgs bosons at the LHC are reviewed. These processes can provide important information on the $cp$-even Higgs bosons, allowing to probe interesting regions of the $MA$--$tb$ parameter plane. The sensitivity of the searches in the forward proton mode for the Higgs bosons in the so-called CDM-benchmark scenarios and the effects of fourth-generation models on the CED Higgs production are briefly discussed.