Interpreting LHC Higgs Results from Natural New Physics Perspective

TL;DR

This paper evaluates LHC Higgs data to constrain simplified natural new physics models, revealing significant restrictions on models with fermionic or scalar partners stabilizing the Higgs potential.

Contribution

It introduces an effective low-energy theory framework to interpret Higgs data in the context of natural new physics models like supersymmetry and Little Higgs.

Findings

Constraints on models with fermionic partners

Constraints on models with scalar partners

Significant limitations on naturalness solutions from Higgs data

Abstract

We analyze the 2011 LHC Higgs data in the context of simplified new physics models addressing the naturalness problem. These models are expected to contain new particles with sizable couplings to the Higgs boson, which can easily modify the Higgs production cross sections and branching fractions. We focus on searches in the Higgs to 4 leptons and Higgs to diphoton channels, in the latter case including the vector boson fusion production mode. Combining the available ATLAS and CMS data in these channels, we derive constraints on an effective low-energy theory of the Higgs boson. We then map several simplified scenarios to the effective theory, capturing numerous natural new physics models such as supersymmetry and Little Higgs, and extract the constraints on the corresponding parameter space. We show that simple models where one fermionic or one scalar partner is responsible for stabilizing the Higgs potential are already constrained in a non-trivial way by LHC Higgs data.