Composite Higgs Search at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper explores how composite Higgs models alter Higgs boson production and decay at the LHC, affecting search strategies and potential discovery prospects compared to the Standard Model.

Contribution

It analyzes the impact of composite Higgs parameters on collider search bounds and identifies scenarios with enhanced detection channels.

Findings

Deviations from SM modify LEP and Tevatron bounds.

Higgs couplings can be reduced or enhanced, affecting search sensitivities.

Enhanced gamma gamma decay channel improves detection prospects.

Abstract

The Higgs boson production cross-sections and decay rates depend, within the Standard Model (SM), on a single unknown parameter, the Higgs mass. In composite Higgs models where the Higgs boson emerges as a pseudo-Goldstone boson from a strongly-interacting sector, additional parameters control the Higgs properties which then deviate from the SM ones. These deviations modify the LEP and Tevatron exclusion bounds and significantly affect the searches for the Higgs boson at the LHC. In some cases, all the Higgs couplings are reduced, which results in deterioration of the Higgs searches but the deviations of the Higgs couplings can also allow for an enhancement of the gluon-fusion production channel, leading to higher statistical significances. The search in the H to gamma gamma channel can also be substantially improved due to an enhancement of the branching fraction for the decay of the Higgs boson into a pair of photons.