Hunting light Higgses at the LHC in the context of the 2HDM Type-I

TL;DR

This paper reinterprets existing Higgs decay searches and proposes a new LHC Run 3 search strategy for light Higgses within the 2HDM Type-I, highlighting a promising cascade decay channel with detailed simulation analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search channel for light Higgses in the 2HDM Type-I and performs a comprehensive simulation study for LHC Run 3 detection prospects.

Findings

Reinterpreted existing SM-like Higgs decay searches in 2HDM Type-I.

Identified a promising cascade decay signal for light Higgses at LHC.

Performed detailed Monte Carlo simulations to assess detection significance.

Abstract

We show the reinterpretation of existing searches for exotic decays of the Standard Model (SM)-like Higgs, $H \to aa (hh)$, in various final states, in the framework of the 2-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) Type-I. We then explore a new search for such light Higgses, $a$ and $h$, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Run 3 for an integrated luminosity of 300 $\text{fb}^{-1}$. After performing a scan over the model parameters, we found that the inverted scenario of Type-I offers a new promising signal in the form of the following cascade decays: $H \to Z^{*}a \to Z^{*}Z^{*}h \to b\overline{b} \mu^- \mu^+ jj$. We investigate then its significance through a full Monte Carlo (MC) simulation down to the detector level.