Implications of a high mass light MSSM Higgs scalar for supersymmetry searches at the LHC

Abstract

The Atlas and CMS groups have both reported an excess of events in the $W{W}^{*}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{\ensuremath{-}}+{E}_{T}^{\mathrm{miss}}$ search channel, which could be the first evidence for the Higgs boson. In the MSSM, the lightest SUSY Higgs scalar $h$ is expected to occur with mass ${m}_{h}\ensuremath{\lesssim}135\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$, depending on the range of SUSY parameters scanned over. Since the $h\ensuremath{\rightarrow}W{W}^{*}$ branching fraction falls swiftly with decreasing ${m}_{h}$, a signal in the $W{W}^{*}$ channel would favor an $h$ at the high end of its predicted mass range. We scan over general GUT scale SUSY model parameters to find those which give rise to ${m}_{h}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}130\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$. A value of ${m}_{0}\ensuremath{\sim}10--20\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$ is favored, with ${A}_{0}\ensuremath{\sim}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2{m}_{0}$, while the lower range of ${m}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\lesssim}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$ is also slightly favored. This gives rise to an ``effective SUSY'' type of sparticle mass spectrum. For low ${m}_{1/2}$, gluino pairs may be accessible to LHC searches, while for higher ${m}_{1/2}$ values, the SUSY spectra would likely be out of range of LHC reach.