Constraining the Inert Doublet Model at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how existing LHC search strategies constrain the Inert Doublet Model, highlighting the importance of optimized cuts and analyzing various production channels to improve detection prospects.

Contribution

It applies exclusion bounds from 2HDMa searches to the IDM, updates constraints from Run 2 data, and discusses the impact of analysis cuts on detecting different new physics scenarios.

Findings

Certain parameter regions of the IDM are constrained by current LHC data.

Optimized analysis cuts can improve sensitivity to the IDM.

Some models with larger rates may still evade detection despite existing searches.

Abstract

In this work, we analyze experimental exclusion bounds that have been derived within a specific new physics realization, the two Higgs-doublet model with a pseudoscalar singlet (2HDMa), and their application to a different model, the Inert Doublet Model (IDM), that features the same final state. In this context, we discuss the sensitivity of the ATLAS search for the 2HDMa in final states with leptons and missing energy. We demonstrate that, with cuts optimized for a specific model topology, other new physics scenarios with larger rates might yet escape detection. We also give an update on constraints from vector boson fusion production of the Standard Model-like scalar and subsequent invisible decay from full Run 2 data on the parameter space of the IDM, with a special emphasis on the off-shell region, as well as a search that specifically concentrates on soft lepton final states.