Hidden Higgs Decaying to Lepton Jets

TL;DR

This paper explores a hidden Higgs decay scenario producing lepton jets, which could have evaded detection at LEP and Tevatron, and discusses strategies for future collider searches.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hidden Higgs decay mode into lepton jets and analyzes collider observables to identify potential signals overlooked in past experiments.

Findings

Up to 10^4 Higgs and SUSY decays may be hidden in existing data.

Higgs decaying to lepton jets can mimic hadronic backgrounds, hiding signals.

Benchmark models with a 100 GeV Higgs are consistent with collider constraints.

Abstract

The Higgs and some of the Standard Model superpartners may have been copiously produced at LEP and the Tevatron without being detected. We study a novel scenario of this type in which the Higgs decays predominantly into a light hidden sector either directly or through light SUSY states. Subsequent cascades increase the multiplicity of hidden sector particles which, after decaying back into the Standard Model, appear in the detector as clusters of collimated leptons known as lepton jets. We identify the relevant collider observables that characterize this scenario, and study a wide range of LEP and Tevatron searches to recover the viable regions in the space of observables. We find that the Higgs decaying to lepton jets can be hidden when the event topology mimics that of hadronic backgrounds. Thus, as many as 10^4 leptonic Higgs and SUSY decays may be hiding in the LEP and Tevatron data. We present benchmark models with a 100 GeV Higgs that are consistent with all available collider constraints. We end with a short discussion of strategies for dedicated searches at LEP, the Tevatron and the LHC, that allow for a discovery of the Higgs or SUSY particles decaying to lepton jets.