Searching for degenerate Higgs bosons - A profile likelihood ratio method to test for mass-degenerate states in the presence of incomplete data and uncertainties

TL;DR

This paper introduces a likelihood ratio test method to identify mass-degenerate Higgs bosons using incomplete data and measurement uncertainties, enhancing the ability to distinguish multiple states in particle physics experiments.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel likelihood ratio test approach for detecting degenerate Higgs states, accounting for data incompleteness and uncertainties, which was not previously available.

Findings

Method effectively tests for multiple Higgs states with incomplete data.

Demonstrated robustness against measurement uncertainties.

Applicable to real experimental scenarios with missing information.

Abstract

Using the likelihood ratio test statistic, we present a method which can be employed to test the hypothesis of a single Higgs boson using the matrix of measured signal strengths. This method can be applied in the presence of incomplete data and takes into account uncertainties on the measurements. The p-value against the hypothesis of a single Higgs boson is defined from the expected distribution of the test statistic, generated using pseudo-experiments. The applicability of the likelihood-based test is demonstrated using numerical examples with uncertainties and missing matrix elements.