Pair Production of MSSM Higgs Bosons in the Non-decoupling Region at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for detecting MSSM Higgs boson pairs at the LHC in the non-decoupling region, highlighting specific production channels and their observability at different energies and luminosities.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Higgs pair production signals in the MSSM non-decoupling region are accessible at the LHC and identifies key channels and luminosity requirements for discovery.

Findings

5σ signal achievable at 8 TeV with ~7-24 fb^{-1}

5σ signal at 14 TeV with ~4-10 fb^{-1}

All five MSSM Higgs bosons can be relatively light and detectable

Abstract

We consider the Higgs boson signals from pair production at the LHC within the framework of the MSSM in the non-decoupling (low-m_A) region. In light of the recent observation of a SM-like Higgs boson, we argue that the exploration for Higgs pair production at the LHC is a crucial next step to probe the MSSM Higgs sector. We emphasize that the production of H^\pm A^0 and H^{+}H^{-} depends only on the electroweak gauge couplings while all the leading Higgs production channels via gluon fusion, vector-boson fusion, and Higgsstrahlung depend on additional free Higgs sector parameters. In the non-decoupling region, the five MSSM Higgs bosons are all relatively light and pair production signals may be accessible. We find that at the 8 TeV LHC, a 5\sigma signal for H^\pm A^0, H^\pm h^0 -> \tau^{\pm}\nu b\bar b and H^{+}H^{-} -> \tau^{+}\nu \tau^{-}\nu are achievable with an integrated luminosity of 7 (11) fb^{-1} and 24 (48) fb^{-1}, respectively for m_A=95 (130) GeV. At the 14 TeV LHC, a 5\sigma signal for these two channels would require as little as 4 (7) fb^{-1} and 10 (19) fb^{-1}, respectively.