Status of MSSM Higgs Sector using Global Analysis and Direct Search Bounds, and Future Prospects at the HL-LHC

TL;DR

This study analyzes the pMSSM Higgs sector using global fits to current LHC and Tevatron data, constraining parameters and exploring future detection prospects at the HL-LHC.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive global analysis of the pMSSM Higgs sector with updated experimental constraints and discusses future search strategies at the HL-LHC.

Findings

Low $M_A$ and high $ aneta$ regions are disfavored by combined data.

Regions with moderate Higgs mixing angle are still allowed.

Light additional Higgses with masses up to 600 GeV remain unconstrained.

Abstract

In this paper, we search for the regions of the phenomenological minimal supersymmetric standard model (pMSSM) parameter space where one can expect to have moderate Higgs mixing angle ($\alpha$) with relatively light (up to 600 GeV) additional Higgses after satisfying the current LHC data. We perform a global fit analysis using most updated data (till December 2014) from the LHC and Tevatron experiments. The constraints coming from the precision measurements of the rare b-decays $B_s \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ and $b\to s \gamma$ are also considered. We find that low $M_{A}$ $(\lesssim 350)$ and high $\tan\beta$ $(\gtrsim 25)$ regions are disfavored by the combined effect of the global analysis and flavour data. However, regions with Higgs mixing angle $\alpha \sim$ 0.1 - 0.8 are still allowed by the current data. We then study the existing direct search bounds on the heavy scalar/pseudoscalar ($\rm H/A$) and charged Higgs boson ($\rm H^\pm$) masses and branchings at the LHC. It has been found that regions with low to moderate values of $\tan\beta$ with light additional Higgses (mass $\le$ 600 GeV) are unconstrained by the data, while the regions with $\tan\beta >$ 20 are excluded considering the direct search bounds by the LHC-8 data. The possibility to probe the region with $\tan\beta$ $\le$ 20 at the high luminosity run of LHC are also discussed, giving special attention to the $\rm H \to hh$, $\rm H/{A} \to t \bar t$ and $\rm H/{A} \to \tau^{+}\tau^{-}$ decay modes.