Invisible decays of the lightest Higgs boson in supersymmetric models

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for the lightest Higgs boson to decay invisibly within supersymmetric models, analyzing constraints from the LHC and exploring parameter spaces in MSSM and NMSSM that allow such decays.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of invisible Higgs decays in MSSM and NMSSM, identifying specific conditions and parameter regions where these decays are possible.

Findings

Invisible decay of Higgs is possible only in specific GUT models with large representations.

Universal gaugino masses at GUT scale generally prevent Higgs invisible decays in NMSSM.

Constraints on NMSSM parameters disfavor certain regions with light neutralinos and gaugino masses.

Abstract

We consider supersymmetric models in which the lightest Higgs scalar can decay invisibly consistent with the constraints on the $126$~GeV state discovered at the CERN LHC. We consider the invisible decay in the minimal supersymmetric standard model~(MSSM), as well its extension containing an additional chiral singlet superfield, the so-called next-to-minimal or nonminimal supersymmetric standard model~(NMSSM).We consider the case of MSSM with both universal as well as nonuniversal gaugino masses at the grand unified scale, and find that only an $E_6$ grand unified model with unnaturally large representation can give rise to sufficiently light neutralinos which can possibly lead to the invisible decay $h^0 \rightarrow \tilde \chi_1^0 \tilde \chi_1^0$. Following this, we consider the case of NMSSM in detail, where also we find that it is not possible to have the invisible decay of the lightest Higgs scalar with universal gaugino masses at the grand unified scale. We delineate the regions of the NMSSM parameter space where it is possible to have the lightest Higgs boson to have a mass of about $126$ GeV, and then concentrate on the region where this Higgs can decay into light neutralinos, with the soft gaugino masses $M_1$ and $M_2$ as two independent parameters, unconstrained by grand unification. We also consider, simultaneously, the other important invisible Higgs decay channel in the NMSSM, namely the decay into the lightest CP odd scalars, $h_1 \to a_1 a_1$, which is studied in detail. With the invisible Higgs branching ratio being constrained by the present LHC results, we find that $\mu_{eff} < 170$~GeV and $M_1 < 80$~GeV is disfavored in NMSSM for fixed values of the other input parameters. The dependence of our results on the parameters of NMSSM is discussed in detail.