Search for a heavy neutral Higgs boson in a left-right model with an inverse seesaw mechanism at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper proposes a low-scale left-right symmetric model with an inverse-seesaw mechanism, predicting a new Higgs boson that can be detected at the LHC through specific decay channels, offering a testable extension of the Standard Model.

Contribution

It introduces a novel low-scale left-right model with a simplified Higgs sector and demonstrates the potential for discovering a new Higgs boson at the LHC.

Findings

The next lightest Higgs boson can have a mass of a few hundred GeV.

Promising detection signals are achievable in di-Higgs channels at the LHC.

The model suppresses flavor-changing neutral currents, aligning with experimental constraints.

Abstract

We develop a low scale left-right symmetric model based on $SU(3)_C\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{B-L}\times Z_2$ with a simplified Higgs sector consisting of only one bidoublet and one $SU(2)_R$ doublet. In this model, the tiny values of light neutrino masses are generated through an inverse-seesaw mechanism. We emphasize that in this setup, the tree-level flavor changing neutral current can be strongly suppressed, consistent with the current experimental constraints. We show that the lightest $CP$-even Higgs boson, which is like the standard model Higgs boson, and the next lightest Higgs boson, $h'$, are generated from the neutral components of the bidoublet. We show that the mass of the next lightest Higgs boson can be of an order a few hundred~\text{GeVs}. We analyze the detection of $h'$ at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=14~\text{TeV}$ and integrated luminosity $L_{\text{int}}=300~{\text{fb}}^{-1}$ via di-Higgs channel: $h'\to hh\to b\bar{b}\gamma\gamma$ and also in the $ZZ$ channel: $h'\to ZZ\to 4\ell~(\ell=e,~\mu)$ at an integrated luminosity $L_{\text{int}}=3000~{\text{fb}}^{-1}$. We consider three benchmark points for this analysis with $m_{h'}=250~\text{GeV},~400~\text{GeV}$, and $600~\text{GeV}$. We show that promising signals with good statistical significances can be obtained in di-Higgs channel, with $2\gamma+2b$-jets final states.