HiggsBounds 2.0.0: Confronting Neutral and Charged Higgs Sector Predictions with Exclusion Bounds from LEP and the Tevatron

TL;DR

HiggsBounds 2.0.0 is a comprehensive computational tool that tests arbitrary Higgs sector models against current LEP and Tevatron exclusion bounds, now including charged Higgs predictions and new search analyses.

Contribution

It significantly extends previous versions by adding more search analyses, including charged Higgs predictions, and applying to models with invisible Higgs decays and Randall-Sundrum scenarios.

Findings

Identifies allowed Higgs mass ranges with invisible decays.

Provides exclusion limits for Randall-Sundrum model Higgs sector.

Includes latest Tevatron results from ICHEP'10.

Abstract

HiggsBounds 2.0.0 is a computer code which tests both neutral and charged Higgs sectors of arbitrary models against the current exclusion bounds from the Higgs searches at LEP and the Tevatron. As input, it requires a selection of model predictions, such as Higgs masses, branching ratios, effective couplings and total decay widths. HiggsBounds 2.0.0 then uses the expected and observed topological cross section limits from the Higgs searches to determine whether a given parameter scenario of a model is excluded at the 95% C.L. by those searches. Version 2.0.0 represents a significant extension of the code since its first release (1.0.0). It includes now 28/53 LEP/Tevatron Higgs search analyses, compared to the 11/22 in the first release, of which many of the ones from the Tevatron are replaced by updates. As a major extension, the code allows now the predictions for (singly) charged Higgs bosons to be confronted with LEP and Tevatron searches. Furthermore, the newly included analyses contain LEP searches for neutral Higgs bosons (H) decaying invisibly or into (non flavour tagged) hadrons as well as decay-mode independent searches for neutral Higgs bosons, LEP searches via the production modes tau+ tau- H and b b-bar H, and Tevatron searches via t t-bar H. Also, all Tevatron results presented at the ICHEP'10 are included in version 2.0.0. As physics applications of HiggsBounds 2.0.0 we study the allowed Higgs mass range for model scenarios with invisible Higgs decays and we obtain exclusion results for the scalar sector of the Randall-Sundrum model using up-to-date LEP and Tevatron direct search results.