Testing charge-radius coupling of the composite Higgs boson at hadron colliders

TL;DR

This paper investigates a charge-radius coupling in composite Higgs models, focusing on collider signatures involving Higgs production with a light pseudoscalar, and assesses the potential for detection at hadron colliders like the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces a novel charge-radius coupling between the Higgs and a singlet, providing a new probe of Higgs compositeness through collider signatures.

Findings

Potential to detect Higgs-singlet coupling at the LHC

Background suppression techniques can be effective

Further analysis needed for conclusive results

Abstract

We explore the collider relevance of a charge-radius coupling among light mesons in composite Higgs models. In particular, we focus of a coupling of the photon to the composite Higgs and a composite singlet, arising from isospin violation in the underlying theory. This coupling offers a deep probe of the composite nature of the Higgs mechanism, being sensitive to the electromagnetic and weak isospin structure of its constituents. The main collider effect consists in the production of the Higgs boson in association with a light composite pseudo-scalar. We present an exploratory cut-and-count analysis at hadron colliders, like the LHC, showing that an efficient background suppression can be achieved. More sophisticated techniques, however, are necessary to select a sufficient number of signal events, due to the small production rates. This justifies further investigation of this channel, which is highly complementary to other searches for compositeness in the Higgs sector.