Uncovering the relation of a scalar resonance to the Higgs boson

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production of a scalar resonance alongside the Higgs boson at the LHC, aiming to constrain its couplings, determine its production mechanism, and explore its connection to electroweak symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides a phenomenological framework to constrain scalar resonance couplings and identify its production mode using Higgs-associated production at the LHC.

Findings

Couplings of the scalar resonance can be constrained in future LHC runs.

The production mechanism (gluon fusion vs. quark-antiquark annihilation) can be distinguished.

The analysis can be extended to other decay channels and scalar scenarios.

Abstract

We consider the associated production of a scalar resonance with the standard model Higgs boson. We demonstrate via a realistic phenomenological analysis that couplings of such a resonance to the Higgs boson can be constrained in a meaningful way in future runs of the LHC, providing insights on its origin and its relation to the electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Moreover, the final state can provide a direct way to determine whether the new resonance is produced predominantly in gluon fusion or quark-anti-quark annihilation. The analysis focusses on a resonance coming from a scalar field with vanishing vacuum expectation value and its decay to a photon pair. It can however be straightforwardly generalised to other scenarios.