The Higgs sector of the phenomenological MSSM in the light of the Higgs boson discovery

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how the discovery of a light Higgs boson at the LHC constrains the parameter space of the phenomenological MSSM, highlighting only two viable regimes consistent with current experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed examination of the MSSM Higgs sector post-Higgs discovery, identifying the allowed parameter regimes and their phenomenological implications.

Findings

Only two MSSM Higgs regimes remain viable: decoupling and supersymmetric regimes.

The light Higgs boson properties are consistent with both regimes under current constraints.

Light supersymmetric particles can alter Higgs decay modes, especially di-photon and invisible decays.

Abstract

The long awaited discovery of a new light scalar at the LHC opens up a new era of studies of the Higgs sector in the SM and its extensions. In this paper we discuss the consequences of the observation of a light Higgs boson with the mass and rates reported by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations on the parameter space of the phenomenological MSSM, including also the so far unsuccessful LHC searches for the heavier Higgs bosons and supersymmetric particle partners in missing transverse momentum as well as the constraints from B physics and dark matter. We explore the various regimes of the MSSM Higgs sector depending on the parameters MA and tan beta and show that only two of them are still allowed by all present experimental constraints: the decoupling regime where there is only one light and standard--like Higgs boson and the supersymmetric regime in which there are light supersymmetric particle partners affecting the decay properties of the Higgs boson, in particular its di-photon and invisible decays.