Modified Higgs Boson Phenomenology from Gauge or Gaugino Mediation in the NMSSM

TL;DR

This paper explores how light pseudoscalars in the NMSSM, arising from approximate U(1)_R symmetry in gauge or gaugino mediation, significantly influence Higgs boson decays, revealing two distinct phenomenological scenarios.

Contribution

It identifies two classes of models with approximate U(1)_R symmetry affecting Higgs phenomenology in the NMSSM, expanding understanding of Higgs decay channels and parameter space.

Findings

Two disjoint phenomenologically allowed regions identified.

One region features decoupled singlet in NMSSM.

Another allows Higgs decay into light pseudoscalars.

Abstract

In the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), the presence of light pseudoscalars can have a dramatic effect on the decays of the Standard Model-like Higgs boson. These pseudoscalars are naturally light if supersymmetry breaking preserves an approximate U(1)_R symmetry, spontaneously broken when the Higgs bosons take on their expectation values. We investigate two classes of theories that possess such an approximate U(1)_R at the mediation scale: deformations of gauge and gaugino mediation. In the models we consider, we find two disjoint classes of phenomenologically allowed parameter regions. One of these regions corresponds to a limit where the singlet of the NMSSM largely decouples. The other can give rise to a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a dominant branching into light pseudoscalars.