Higgs Production Amidst the LHC Detector

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential collider signatures of long-lived neutral particles decaying into Higgs bosons and missing energy, proposing a minimal extension to the Standard Model that could explain certain LHC anomalies.

Contribution

It introduces a simple model with two new fermions that naturally produce long-lived particles, and analyzes their detectable signatures at the LHC.

Findings

Long-lived neutral particles can have decay lengths from 0.01 mm to 1 km.

Existing LHC data may already contain signals from these particles.

The model offers a potential explanation for some observed Higgs-related anomalies.

Abstract

We investigate the spectacular collider signatures of macroscopically displaced, neutral particles that decay to Higgs bosons and missing energy. We show that such long-lived particles arise naturally in a very minimal extension of the Standard Model with only two new fermions with electroweak interactions. The lifetime of the long-lived neutral particles can range from 10^{-2} mm to 10^6 mm. In some regions of the parameter space, the exotic signals would have already been selected by the ATLAS and CMS triggers in their 7 and 8 TeV runs, hence hiding in the existing data. We also discuss the possibility of explaining the mild anomalies observed in the diphoton Higgs channel and the WW production at the LHC.