Discovering the Higgs Bosons of Minimal Supersymmetry with Bottom Quarks

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential to detect neutral Higgs bosons in minimal supersymmetry via bottom quark production and decay into bottom quark pairs at the LHC and Tevatron, considering realistic backgrounds and efficiencies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of Higgs discovery prospects in minimal supersymmetry, including background calculations and detection limits at different collider luminosities.

Findings

Detectable Higgs bosons up to 800 GeV at LHC with 30 fb$^{-1}$

Detectable Higgs bosons up to 1 TeV at LHC with 300 fb$^{-1}$

Realistic background modeling enhances discovery feasibility

Abstract

We investigate the prospects for the discovery of a neutral Higgs boson produced with one bottom quark followed by Higgs decay into a pair of bottom quarks at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We work within the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. The dominant physics background is calculated with realistic acceptance cuts and efficiencies including the production of $bb\bar{b}$, $\bar{b}b\bar{b}$, $jb\bar{b}$ ($j = g, q, \bar{q}$; $q = u, d, s, c$), $t\bar{t} \to b\bar{b}jj\ell\nu$, and $t\bar{t} \to b\bar{b}jjjj$. Promising results are found for the CP-odd pseudoscalar ($A^0$) and the heavier CP-even scalar ($H^0$) Higgs bosons with masses up to 800 GeV for the LHC with an integrated luminosity ($L$) of 30 fb$^{-1}$ and up to 1 TeV for $L =$ 300 fb$^{-1}$.