QCD exotics versus a Standard Model Higgs

TL;DR

This paper examines how collider data constrains exotic quarks beyond the Standard Model, showing that their existence depends on their mass generation mechanism relative to the Higgs.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the phenomenological limits on exotic quarks in non-triplet SU(3)_C representations and discusses implications for Higgs searches.

Findings

Exotic quarks coupling to the Higgs are excluded if the Higgs is discovered within the allowed mass range.

Such exotic quarks can only exist if their masses do not originate from the Standard Model Higgs mechanism.

Collider data severely restricts the parameter space for strongly-interacting exotic particles.

Abstract

The present collider data put severe constraints on any type of new strongly-interacting particle coupling to the Higgs boson. We analyze the phenomenological limits on exotic quarks belonging to non-triplet SU(3)_C representations and their implications on Higgs searches. The discovery of the Standard Model Higgs, in the experimentally allowed mass range, would exclude the presence of exotic quarks coupling to it. Thus, such QCD particles could only exist provided that their masses do not originate in the SM Higgs mechanism.