Abstract
LHC searches for non-standard Higgs bosons decaying into tau lepton pairs constitute a sensitive experimental probe for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), such as Supersymmetry (SUSY). Recently, the limits obtained from these searches have been presented by the CMS collaboration in a nearly model-independent fashion - as a narrow resonance model - based on the full 8 TeV dataset. In addition to publishing a 95% C.L. exclusion limit, the full likelihood information for the narrow resonance model has been released. This provides valuable information that can be incorporated into global BSM fits. We present a simple algorithm that maps an arbitrary model with multiple neutral Higgs bosons onto the narrow resonance model and derives the corresponding value for the exclusion likelihood from the CMS search. This procedure has been implemented into the public computer code HiggsBounds (version 4.2.0 and higher). We validate our implementation by cross-checking against the official CMS exclusion contours in three Higgs benchmark scenarios in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), and find very good agreement. Going beyond validation, we discuss the combined constraints of the tau tau search and the rate measurements of the SM-like Higgs at 125 GeV in a recently proposed MSSM benchmark scenario, where the lightest Higgs boson obtains SM-like couplings independently of the decoupling of the heavier Higgs states. Technical details for how to access the likelihood information within HiggsBounds are given in the appendix. The program is available at http://higgsbounds.hepforge.org.
Highlights
The search for Higgs bosons [1,2,3,4,5,6] continues to be a cornerstone of the physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
LHC searches for non-standard Higgs bosons decaying into tau lepton pairs constitute a sensitive experimental probe for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), such as supersymmetry (SUSY)
This section briefly summarizes the experimental results from the CMS non-standard Higgs search in the τ τ final state [20], that we have used as starting point for our investigation and that we have implemented in HiggsBounds
Summary
The search for Higgs bosons [1,2,3,4,5,6] continues to be a cornerstone of the physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The existing limits from the Higgs searches at LEP, the Tevatron and the LHC already put very important constraints on the parameter spaces of different models that provide a Higgs-like state compatible with the detected signal. Testing a large variety of observables one would expect that the measured values of some observables lie outside of the respective 95 % C.L. regions for purely statistical reasons It would be very desirable if negative experimental outcomes from Higgs searches were provided in terms of the likelihood information in the relevant parameters, instead of a simple binary rejection or acceptance at a certain confidence level (C.L.). The new version of HiggsBounds can be used together with its sister program HiggsSignals [13] in order to take into account both the information from search limits and from the detected signal for a comprehensive test of Higgs phenomenology All relevant information needed to run HiggsBounds to obtain the likelihood information for the τ +τ − Higgs search channel for any parameter point under investigation are contained in an Appendix
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