Discovery potential of the NMSSM CP-odd Higgs at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper assesses the Large Hadron Collider's ability to discover the lightest CP-odd Higgs boson in the NMSSM model, focusing on gluon fusion production and various decay channels.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the production and decay rates of the a1 Higgs in the NMSSM, highlighting regions where discovery is feasible.

Findings

Production and decay rates are sizable in certain parameter regions.

Inclusive signal rates can facilitate the extraction of the a1 signal.

Potential for discovery depends on specific NMSSM parameters.

Abstract

In this paper we examine the LHC discovery potential of the lightest CP-odd Higgs boson, a1, of the NMSSM produced in gluon fusion channel gg->a1. We evaluate the inclusive signal rates of the a1 for a variety of decay channels and discuss its possible discovery. It is observed that the overall production and decay rates at inclusive level are quite sizable and should help extracting the a1 signal over some regions of the NMSSM parameter space.