Prospects for discovering the Higgs-like pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of the classical scale symmetry

Abstract

We examine the impact of the expected reach of the LHC and the XENON1T experiments on the parameter space of the minimal classically scale invariant extension of the standard model (SM), where all the mass scales are induced dynamically by means of the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. In this framework, the SM content is enlarged by the addition of one complex gauge singlet scalar with a scale invariant and $CP$-symmetric potential. The massive pseudoscalar component, protected by the $CP$-symmetry, forms a viable dark matter candidate, and three flavors of the right-handed Majorana neutrinos are included to account for the nonzero masses of the SM neutrinos via the see-saw mechanism. The projected constraints on the parameter space arise by applying the ATLAS heavy Higgs discovery prospects, with an integrated luminosity of 300 and 3000~fb$^{-1}$ at $\sqrt s = 14$~TeV, to the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of the (approximate) scale symmetry, as well as by utilizing the expected reach of the XENON1T direct detection experiment for the discovery of the pseudoscalar dark matter candidate. A null-signal discovery by these future experiments implies that vast regions of the model's parameter space can be thoroughly explored; the combined projections are expected to confine a mixing between the SM and the singlet sector to very small values, while probing the viability of the TeV~scale pseudoscalar's thermal relic abundance as the dominant dark matter component in the Universe. Furthermore, the vacuum stability and triviality requirements of the framework up to the Planck scale are studied and the viable region of the parameter space is identified. The results are summarized in extensive exclusion plots, incorporating additionally the prior theoretical and experimental bounds for comparison.