Probing Scotogenic Effects in Higgs Boson Decays

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the scotogenic model, which links neutrino masses and dark matter, affects Higgs boson decays, and how current and future LHC data can test or constrain this model.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of Higgs decays involving dark matter candidates within the scotogenic model, connecting neutrino physics with collider phenomenology.

Findings

Higgs decays into dark matter particles can have sizable rates compatible with current data.

Correlations between Higgs decay channels can serve as signatures of the scotogenic model.

Upcoming LHC measurements can either detect signals or further constrain the model.

Abstract

The recent observation of a Higgs boson at the LHC and experimental confirmation of nonvanishing neutrino-mixing parameter sin(theta_13) offer important means to test physics beyond the standard model. We explore this within the context of the scotogenic model, in which neutrinos acquire mass radiatively via one-loop interactions with dark matter. Starting with a two-parameter neutrino-mixing matrix which is consistent with the latest neutrino-oscillation data at the one-sigma level, we derive different sets of solutions for the Yukawa couplings of the nonstandard particles in the model and use the results to consider the Higgs decays into final states involving the new particles. Assuming that the lightest one of them serves as fermionic cold dark matter, we show that such decays are allowed by various experimental and theoretical constraints to have substantial rates that are already restricted by the current LHC data. We also look at their correlations with the Higgs decays into gamma gamma and gamma Z. Upcoming LHC measurements of the Higgs boson can therefore either detect scotogenic signals or place further constraints on the model.