Search for rare and exotic Higgs Boson decay modes

TL;DR

This paper reports on the CMS experiment's search for rare and exotic Higgs boson decay modes using LHC data, setting limits on various decay channels but finding no evidence of new physics.

Contribution

It provides the latest experimental limits on multiple rare and exotic Higgs decay modes using comprehensive LHC data from 2011-2016.

Findings

No evidence of new physics in analyzed decay modes

Limits set on branching ratios of rare Higgs decays

Enhanced constraints on exotic Higgs decay scenarios

Abstract

The latest results in the search for rare and exotic Higgs boson decays in proton-proton collision events collected with the CMS detector at the LHC are presented. The searches are performed for several decay modes of Higgs boson including $\mathrm{H}\rightarrow{\rm X (X \rightarrow2\ell)\gamma}$ ($X= {\rm Z}, \gamma^* $ and $\ell={\rm e},\mu$), $\mathrm{H}\rightarrow{ \mu\mu / {\rm e}{\rm e}}$, invisible decays, lepton flavour violating decays and Higgs decay to light scalars or pseudo-scalars. No hint for new physics has been found from the analyzed results with the full LHC run-1 data collected during 2011 and 2012 at $\sqrt{s}=7-8$ TeV and with the run-2 data at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV collected during 2015 and 2016. Limits are set for all the searches which have been performed by CMS.