BSM Higgs searches in the gluon fusion process pp -> h +jet -> tau^+ tau^- + jet at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to detect a very light Higgs boson predicted by BSM models at the 14 TeV LHC through the gluon fusion process producing a Higgs with a jet, which then decays into tau pairs.

Contribution

It proposes a new search channel for very light Higgs bosons in BSM scenarios via the pp -> h j -> tau+ tau- j process at the LHC.

Findings

Potential detection of a light Higgs at the 14 TeV LHC with early data.

The process pp -> h j -> tau+ tau- j is promising for BSM Higgs searches.

Light Higgs could have evaded LEP but be observable at the LHC.

Abstract

The mass of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson was constrained by the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider to be above 114.4 GeV. Simple extensions of the scalar sector like adding singlets and/or doublets allow the lightest Higgs to be much lighter via a reduction in its coupling to gauge bosons. Such a light Higgs could have evaded the LEP searches but could be detected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the process pp -> h j -> tau^+ tau^- j, where j is a resolved jet. We conclude that in some Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) extensions of the scalar sector, a very light Higgs state could be detected at the 14 TeV LHC with early data.