Discovering a Nonstandard Higgs in a Standard Way

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection prospects of a nonstandard Higgs with mixed visible and missing energy decays at the Tevatron and LHC, adapting standard search strategies for these unconventional signals.

Contribution

It demonstrates how existing Higgs and supersymmetry search techniques can be modified to detect nonstandard Higgs decays involving both visible and invisible particles.

Findings

LHC has good prospects for detecting such Higgs decays, especially via the WW* channel.

Tevatron's reach for these signals is limited.

Standard searches may become less effective if overly model-dependent tools are used.

Abstract

In this note, we explore the Tevatron and LHC detection prospects for a nonstandard Higgs whose decays contain both missing and visible energy. In particular, we consider the decay $h \to \chi_2 \chi_1$ where $\chi_1$ is stable and $\chi_2$ decay back to $\chi_1$ and additional visible particles. We focus on adapting standard searches for both Higgses and supersymmetry to these decays. In these channels, the Tevatron has little reach, but the LHC has good prospects for decays that involve leptons or neutrinos. In particular, the standard WW* search for a Higgs produced in vector boson fusion has the largest reach. Trilepton searches and invisible Higgs searches are less powerful, but can give corroborating evidence. However, such standard searches could become inefficient for these signals if the analyses adopt model dependent tools such as matrix elements and neural nets.