Search

Determining if the SM-like Higgs is part of an extended Higgs sector is the most important question to be asked after discovery. A light charged Higgs boson with mass smaller than the sum of top and bottom quarks is naturally allowed in Type-I two Higgs doublet model and can be produced in association with neutral scalars for large parts of parameter space at the LHC. Such low mass charged scalars typically have dominant decays to the fermionic modes viz. τν and cs. However in the presence of light neutral scalar (φ), the charged Higgs boson has a substantial branching fraction into the bosonic decay modes H±→ W(*)φ. Identifying the heavier neutral Higgs (H) with the observed 125 GeV Higgs and working in the limit M H ± ≈ M A , we examine charged Higgs production and decay in the bosonic mode pp → H±h → W(∗)hh. The presence of two light Higgses (h) is then the key to identifying charged Higgs production. The light Higgs branching ratio is largely dominated by the b b ¯ mode except when close to the fermiophobic limit. Here, the rates into b b ¯ and γγ can be comparable and we can use the γγb b ¯ signature. This signature is complementary to the hh → 4γ which has been previously discussed in literature. Using the lepton from the W boson, we demonstrate with a cut-and-count analysis that both the new light neutral Higgs as well as charged Higgs can be probed with reasonable significance at 13.6 TeV LHC with 300-3000 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-minimal simplified extensions of the Standard Model have gained considerable currency in the context of dark matter searches at the LHC, since they predict enhanced mono-Higgs and mono-W/Z signatures over large parts of the parameter space. However, these non-minimal models obviously lack the simplicity and directness of the original simplified models, and are more heavily dependent on the model assumptions. We propose to classify these models generically on the basis of additional mediator(s) and dark matter particles. As an example, we take up a scenario involving multiple pseudoscalar mediators, and a single Dirac dark matter particle, the latter being a popular introduction to ensure ultraviolet completion of theories with multiple pseudoscalar fields. In the chosen scenario, we discuss the viable channels and signatures of relevance at the future runs of the LHC. These are then compared with the minimal simplified scenarios and distinguishing features are pinpointed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the upper bound on the inelastic reaction cross-section implied by S-matrix unitarity, we derive the thermally averaged maximum dark matter (DM) annihilation rate for general k → 2 number-changing reactions, with k ≥ 2, taking place either entirely within the dark sector, or involving standard model fields. This translates to a maximum mass of the particle saturating the observed DM abundance, which, for dominantly s-wave annihilations, is obtained to be around 130 TeV, 1 GeV, 7 MeV and 110 keV, for k = 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively, in a radiation dominated Universe, for a real or complex scalar DM stabilized by a minimal symmetry. For modified thermal histories in the pre-big bang nucleosynthesis era, with an intermediate period of matter domination, values of reheating temperature higher than O 200 GeV for k ≥ 4, O 1 TeV for k = 3 and O 50 TeV for k = 2 are strongly disfavoured by the combined requirements of unitarity and DM relic abundance, for DM freeze-out before reheating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]