Sensing Higgs cascade decays through memory

TL;DR

This paper proposes using memory-encoded features to detect Higgs cascade decays, enhancing sensitivity over traditional methods by exploiting the sequential decay patterns in beyond Standard Model scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach leveraging memory in decay sequences to improve detection sensitivity of Higgs cascade decays in BSM physics.

Findings

Memory-based analysis improves signal discrimination.

Enhanced sensitivity over standard kinematic methods.

Applicable to theoretically motivated BSM scenarios.

Abstract

Beyond the Standard Model scenarios with extensions of the Higgs sector typically predict new resonances that can undergo a series of cascade decays to detectable Standard Model particles. On one hand, sensitivity to such signatures will contribute to the full reconstruction of the extended Higgs potential if a new physics discovery will be made. On the other hand, such cascade decays could be dominant decay channels, thus being potentially the best motivated signatures to achieve a new physics discovery in the first place. In this work, we show how the long short-term memory that is encoded in the cascade decays' phenomenology can be exploited in discriminating the signal from the background, where no such information is present. In parallel, we demonstrate for theoretically motivated scenarios that such an approach provides improved sensitivity compared to more standard analyses, where only information about the signal's final state kinematics is included.