Boson Final States Research Articles

Higgs alignment and novel CP -violating observables in two-Higgs-doublet models

Null results from searches for new physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tend to enforce the belief that new particles must be much heavier than the weak scale. We undertake a systematic study of the interplay between Higgs alignment and $CP$-violation in complex two-Higgs-doublet models, which enables us to construct a $CP$-violating scenario where new Higgs bosons are close to the weak scale after including stringent constraints from the electric dipole moment and measurements at the LHC. In addition, we propose a novel potential signal of $CP$-violation in the Higgs-to-Higgs decays, ${h}_{3}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{h}_{2}{h}_{1}$, where ${h}_{3}$, ${h}_{2}$, and ${h}_{1}$ are the heaviest, second heaviest and the Standard Model-like neutral Higgs bosons, respectively. The decay could manifest itself in triple boson final states in ${h}_{1}{h}_{1}{h}_{1}$ and ${h}_{1}{h}_{1}Z$, which are quite distinct and provide unique venues for new measurements at the LHC.

Small field polynomial inflation: reheating, radiative stability and lower bound

We revisit the renormalizable polynomial inflection point model of inflation, focusing on the small field scenario which can be treated fully analytically. In particular, the running of the spectral index is predicted to be α = -1.43 × 10-3 +5.56 × 10-5(NCMB-65 ), which might be tested in future. We also analyze reheating through perturbative inflaton decays to either fermionic or bosonic final states via a trilinear coupling. The lower bound on the reheating temperature from successful Big Bang nucleosynthesis gives lower bounds for these couplings; on the other hand radiative stability of the inflaton potential leads to upper bounds. In combination this leads to a lower bound on the location ϕ0 of the near inflection point, ϕ0 > 3 · 10-5 in Planckian units. The Hubble parameter during inflation can be as low as Hinf∼ 1 MeV, or as high as ∼ 1010 GeV. Similarly, the reheating temperature can lie between its lower bound of ∼ 4 MeV and about 4 · 108 (1011) GeV for fermionic (bosonic) inflaton decays. We finally speculate on the “prehistory” of the universe in this scenario, which might have included an epoch of eternal inflation.

First implications of Tibet ASγ data for heavy dark matter

Extensive air shower detectors of gamma rays in the sub-PeV energy region provide a new and relatively unexplored window for dark matter searches. Here we derive some implications of the recently published Tibet AS$_\gamma$ data for decaying dark matter candidates. The available spectral information is already useful in obtaining competitive constraints, surpassing existing limits above 10 PeV mass for hadronic or massive boson final states. This is particularly true if accounting for a benchmark astrophysical background of Galactic cosmic rays in the (0.1-1) PeV range. By relying on the arrival distribution of the photons, we show that significantly better sensitivity can be attained, comparable or better than IceCube also for most leptonic final states. Full data exploitation requires however further information disclosure.

Multi-Higgs boson probes of the dark sector

We consider dark sectors with spontaneously broken gauge symmetries, where cascade decays of the dark sector fields naturally produce multi-Higgs boson final states along with dark matter. Our study focuses on two and three Higgs boson final states with missing energy using a multivariate analysis with Boosted Decision Trees. We find that the di-Higgs boson channel is quite promising for the $\bar b b + \gamma \gamma$ and $\bar b b + \bar \ell \ell$ decay modes. The tri-Higgs boson final state with missing energy, on the other hand, appears to be beyond the reach of the LHC in analogous channels. This may change when fully hadronic Higgs boson decays are considered.

Long-lived heavy particles in neutrino mass models

All extensions of the standard model that generate Majorana neutrino masses at the electro-weak scale introduce some "heavy" mediators, either fermions and/or scalars, weakly coupled to leptons. Here, by "heavy" we understand implicitly the mass range between a few 100 GeV up to, say, roughly 2 TeV, such that these particles can be searched for at the LHC. We study decay widths of these mediators for several different tree-level neutrino mass models. The models we consider range from the simplest $d=5$ seesaw up to $d=11$ neutrino mass models. For each of the models we identify the most interesting parts of the parameter space, where the heavy mediator fields are particularly long-lived and can decay with experimentally measurable decay lengths. One has to distinguish two different scenarios, depending on whether fermions or scalars are the lighter of the heavy particles. For fermions we find that the decay lengths correlate with the inverse of the overall neutrino mass scale. Thus, since no lower limit on the lightest neutrino mass exists, nearly arbitrarily long decay lengths can be obtained for the case where fermions are the lighter of the heavy particles. For charged scalars, on the other hand, there exists a maximum value for the decay length. This maximum value depends on the model and on the electric charge of the scalar under consideration, but can at most be of the order of a few millimeters. Interestingly, independent of the model, this maximum occurs always in a region of parameter space, where leptonic and gauge boson final states have similar branching ratios, i.e. where the observation of lepton number violating final states from scalar decays is possible.

Gamma-ray lines may reveal the CP nature of the dark matter particle

Determining the fundamental properties of the dark matter is one of the most important open problems in particle physics today. If the dark matter particle has spin zero, one of these properties is its CP nature. That is, whether it is CP-even (scalar), CP-odd (pseudoscalar), or if its interactions violate CP. In this paper, we show that the observation of γ-ray lines arising from the decay of a spin-zero dark matter particle could be used to discriminate among these possibilities. We consider a general setup where dark matter decay is induced by effective operators and demonstrate that, due to gauge invariance, there exists correlations among the branching ratios into gauge boson final states (γγ, γ Z, W+W−, ZZ) that depend on the mass and the CP properties of the dark matter. Consequently, the future observation of γ-ray lines may in principle be used to establish the CP nature of the dark matter particle.

Heavy Higgs boson decays in the alignment limit of the 2HDM

The Standard Model (SM)-like couplings of the observed Higgs boson impose strong constraints on the structure of any extended Higgs sector. We consider the theoretical properties and the phenomenological implications of a generic two Higgs doublet model (2HDM). This model constitutes a simple and attractive extension of the SM that is consistent with the observation of the SM-like Higgs boson and precision electroweak observables, while providing a potential new source of CP-violation. In this paper we focus on the so-called Higgs alignment limit of the generic 2HDM, where the neutral scalar field H1, with the tree-level couplings of the SM Higgs boson, is a mass eigenstate that is aligned in field space with the direction of the Higgs vacuum expectation value. The properties of the two other heavier neutral Higgs scalars, H2 and H3, in the alignment limit of the 2HDM are also elucidated. It is shown that the couplings of H2 and H3 in the alignment limit are tightly constrained and correlated. For example, in the exact alignment limit at tree level, for bosonic final states BR(H2,3 → W+W−, ZZ, H1Z) = 0 and BR(H± → W±H1) = 0, whereas for fermionic final states Γ(H2 → ff¯)/Γ(H3 → ff¯) ∼ M2/M3 (where Mα is the mass of Hα). In some cases, the results of the alignment limit differ depending on whether or not alignment is achieved via the decoupling of heavy scalar states. In particular, in the exact alignment limit without decoupling BR(H2,3 → H1H1) = 0, whereas these branching ratios are nonzero in the decoupling regime. Observables that could be used to test the alignment scenario at the LHC are defined and discussed. The couplings of the Higgs bosons away from their exact alignment values are determined to leading order, and some consequences are elucidated.

The second lightest CP-even Higgs boson signals in the NMSSM at the LHC

We study the signal rates of the second lightest CP-even Higgs boson, [Formula: see text], of the NMSSM produced in gluon fusion, in association with bottom quarks and in association with top quarks, which is not the SM-like Higgs boson, at the LHC. We evaluate the production rates of [Formula: see text] in the SM fermionic and bosonic final states in addition to [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] final states. It is observed that the size of the signal rates in some regions of the NMSSM parameter space is quite large and that could help extracting [Formula: see text] signals at the LHC through a variety of decay channels.

New physics in multi-Higgs boson final states

We explore the potential for the discovery of the triple-Higgs signal in the decay channel at a 100 TeV hadron collider. We consider both the Standard Model and generic new-physics contributions, described by an effective Lagrangian that includes higher-dimensional operators. The selected subset of operators is motivated by composite-Higgs and Higgs-inflation models. In the Standard Model, we perform both a parton-level and a detector-level analysis. Although the parton-level results are encouraging, the detector-level results demonstrate that this mode is really challenging. However, sizable contributions from new effective operators can largely increase the cross section and/or modify the kinematics of the Higgs bosons in the final state. Taking into account the projected constraints from single and double Higgs-boson production, we propose benchmark points in the new physics models for the measurement of the triple-Higgs boson final state for future collider projects.

Leptophilic dark matter confronts AMS-02 cosmic-ray positron flux

With the measurement of positron flux published recently by AMS-02 collaboration, we show how the leptophilic dark matter fits the observation. We obtain the percentages of different products of dark matter annihilation that can best describe the flux of high energy positrons observed by AMS. We show that dark matter annihilates predominantly into ττ pair, while both ee and μμ final states should be less than 20%. When gauge boson final states are included, the best branching ratio of needed ττ mode reduces.

Probe Higgs potential via multi-Higgs boson final states at hadron colliders

I summarize some results related with the determination of the Higgs potential, including a hadron-level Monte Carlo study of the sensitivity of Higgs boson pair production via the [Formula: see text] channel with the final state [Formula: see text] and the sensitivity study on the triple Higgs boson final state via [Formula: see text] in a 100 TeV collider.

Determination of the transverse momentum of W bosons in hadronic collisions via forward folding techniques

The measurement of the transverse momentum of W bosons in hadron collisions provides not only an important test of quantum chromodynamic (QCD) calculations, but also is a crucial input for the precision measurement of the W boson mass. While the measurement of the Z boson transverse momentum is experimentally well under control, the available unfolding techniques for the W boson final states lead generically to relatively large uncertainties. In this paper, we present a new methodology to estimate the W boson transverse momentum spectrum, significantly improving the systematic uncertainties of current approaches.

Dark matter for excess of AMS-02 positrons and antiprotons

We propose a dark matter explanation to simultaneously account for the excess of antiproton-to-proton and positron power spectra observed in the AMS-02 experiment while having the right dark matter relic abundance and satisfying the current direct search bounds. We extend the Higgs triplet model with a hidden gauge symmetry of SU(2)X that is broken to Z3 by a quadruplet scalar field, rendering the associated gauge bosons stable weakly-interacting massive particle dark matter candidates. By coupling the complex Higgs triplet and the SU(2)X quadruplet, the dark matter candidates can annihilate into triplet Higgs bosons each of which in turn decays into lepton or gauge boson final states. Such a mechanism gives rise to correct excess of positrons and antiprotons with an appropriate choice of the triplet vacuum expectation value. Besides, the model provides a link between neutrino mass and dark matter phenomenology.

On-shell interference effects in Higgs boson final states

Top quark loops in Higgs production via gluon fusion at large invariant final state masses can induce important interference effects in searches for additional Higgs bosons as predicted in, e.g., Higgs portal scenarios and the MSSM when the heavy scalar is broad or the final state resolution is poor. Currently, the limit setting as performed by both ATLAS and CMS is based on injecting a heavy Higgs-like signal neglecting interference effects. In this paper, we perform a study of such "on-shell" interference effects in $pp\to ZZ$ and find that they lead to a $\lesssim{\cal{O}}(30%)$ width scheme-dependent modification of the signal strength. Including the continuum contributions to obtain e.g. the full $pp\to ZZ \to 4\ell$ final state, this modification is reduced to the 10% level in the considered intermediate mass range.

Review of physics results from the Tevatron: QCD physics

We present a summary of results from studies of quantum chromodynamics at the Fermilab Tevatron collider by the CDF and the D0 experiments. These include Run II results for the time period up to the end of Summer 2014. A brief description of Run I results is also given. This review covers a wide spectrum of topics, and includes measurements with jet and vector boson final states in the hard (perturbative) energy regime, as well as studies of soft physics such as diffractive and elastic scatterings, underlying and minimum bias events, hadron fragmentation, and multiple parton interactions.

RS resonance in di-final state production at the LHC to NLO+PS accuracy

We study the di-final state processes ($\ell^+ \ell^-$, $\gamma \gamma$, $ZZ$, $W^+ W^-$) to NLO+PS accuracy, as a result of both the SM and RS Kaluza-Klein graviton excitations. Decay of the electroweak gauge boson final states to different leptonic states are included at the showering stage. A selection of the results has been presented with PDF and scale uncertainties for various distributions. Using the di-lepton and di-photon final states, we present the search sensitivity, for the $14$ TeV LHC at $50$ fb$^{-1}$ luminosity.

LHC search for di-Higgs decays of stoponium and other scalars in events with two photons and two bottom jets

We study the prospects for LHC discovery of a narrow resonance that decays to two Higgs bosons, using the final state of two photons and two bottom jets. Our work is motivated in part by a scenario in which two-body flavor-preserving decays of the top squark are kinematically forbidden. Stoponium, a hadronic bound state of the top squark and its antiparticle, will then form, and may have a large branching fraction into the two Higgs boson final state. We estimate the cross section needed for a 5-sigma discovery at the 14 TeV LHC for such a narrow di-Higgs resonance, using the invariant mass distributions of the final state bottom jets and photons, as a function of the integrated luminosity. The results are also applicable to any other di-Higgs resonance produced by gluon fusion.

Tagging boosted Ws with wavelets

We present a new technique for distinguishing the hadronic decays of boosted heavy particles from QCD backgrounds based on wavelet transforms. As an initial exploration, we illustrate the technique in the particular case of hadronic $W$ boson decays, comparing it to the ``mass drop'' cut currently used by the LHC experiments. We apply wavelet cuts, which make use of complementary information, and in combination with the mass drop cut results in an improvement of $\sim$7% in discovery reach of hadronic $W$ boson final states over a wide range of transverse momenta.

Hadroproduction of electroweak gauge boson plus jets and TMD parton density functions

If studies of electroweak gauge boson final states at the Large Hadron Collider, for Standard Model physics and beyond, are sensitive to effects of the initial state's transverse momentum distribution, appropriate generalizations of QCD shower evolution are required. We propose a method to do this based on QCD transverse momentum dependent (TMD) factorization at high energy. The method incorporates experimental information from the high-precision deep inelastic scattering (DIS) measurements, and includes experimental and theoretical uncertainties on TMD parton density functions. We illustrate the approach presenting results for production of W-boson + n jets at the LHC, including azimuthal correlations and subleading jet distributions.

Probing the anomalous FCNC interactions in a top-Higgs boson final state and the charge ratio approach

We study the anomalous production of a single top quark in association with a Higgs boson at the LHC originating from flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) interactions in $tqg$ and $tqH$ vertices. We derive the discovery potentials and $68\%$ C.L. upper limits considering leptonic decay of the top quark and the Higgs boson decay into a $b\bar{b}$ pair with 10 fb$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity of data in proton-proton collisions at the center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. We propose a charge ratio for the lepton in top quark decay in terms of lepton $p_{T}$ and $\eta$ as a strong tool to observe the signal. In particular, we show that the charge ratio increases significantly at large $p_{T}$ of the charged lepton. While the main background from $t\bar{t}$ is nearly charge symmetric and $W+jets$ background has much smaller charge ratio with respect to the signal. We show that this feature can also be used in the probe of anomalous single top production with a $Z-$boson or a photon which are under the attention of the experimental collaborations.