Dark matter and Higgs phenomenology predicted by left-right twin Higgs model in light of CDMS II results

TL;DR

The paper explores a left-right twin Higgs model predicting a stable scalar dark matter candidate and analyzes its detection prospects and impact on Higgs decay modes, with implications for LHC Higgs searches.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dark matter candidate within the twin Higgs framework and studies its detection cross section and effects on Higgs phenomenology, including invisible decay channels.

Findings

Dark matter scattering cross section is below CDMS II bounds but within SuperCDMS sensitivity.

Higgs decay h -> tS tS can be sizable, suppressing other decay modes.

Higgs production rates at LHC are significantly reduced compared to the Standard Model.

Abstract

The left-right twin Higgs model predicts a light stable scalar \hat{S}, which is a candidate for WIMP dark matter. We study its scattering on nucleon and find that the cross section is below the CDMS II upper bound but can reach the SuperCDMS sensitivity. Then we study the Higgs phenomenology by paying special attention to the decay h -> \hat{S} \hat{S} which is strongly correlated with the dark matter scattering on nucleon. We find that such an invisible decay can be sizable, which can severely suppress the conventional decay modes like h->VV (V=W,Z) and h->b\bar{b}. On the other hand, compared to the SM prediction, the rates of Higgs boson productions at the LHC via gluon-gluon fusion, weak boson fusion or in association with top quark pairs are all reduced significantly, e.g., the gluon-gluon fusion channel can be suppressed by about 30%.