Anatomy of Exotic Higgs Decays in 2HDM

TL;DR

This paper explores how large mass differences between new scalars in 2HDM models enable novel heavy Higgs decay searches at the LHC, analyzing various channels and constraints to guide future experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of exotic Higgs decay channels in hierarchical 2HDM scenarios, including benchmark strategies for LHC Run 2.

Findings

Identification of key search channels for hierarchical 2HDM scalars.

Benchmark planes to optimize LHC search strategies.

Assessment of experimental constraints on 2HDM parameter space.

Abstract

Large mass splittings between new scalars in two-Higgs-doublet models (2HDM) open a key avenue to search for these new states via exotic heavy Higgs decays. We discuss in detail the different search channels for these new scalars at the LHC in the presence of a sizable mass splitting, i.e. a hierarchical 2HDM scenario, taking into account the theoretical and experimental constraints. We provide benchmark planes to exploit the complementarity among these searches, analyzing their potential to probe the hierarchical 2HDM parameter space during LHC Run 2.