Observability of MSSM Higgs bosons via sparticle decay modes in CMS

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential to detect heavy MSSM Higgs bosons through their decay into supersymmetric particles at the LHC, focusing on a promising four-lepton plus missing energy signature with CMS detector simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis strategy for observing MSSM Higgs bosons via sparticle decay modes, emphasizing the four-lepton final state in CMS detector studies.

Findings

Signal can be distinguished from background in certain mass and tan beta ranges.

Detection is feasible if neutralinos and sleptons are sufficiently light.

The study provides parameter space regions where the Higgs decay signals are observable.

Abstract

We discuss the possibilities to observe the decays of heavy SUSY Higgs bosons into supersymmetric particles at the LHC. Such an observation would be of interest either in a discovery search if sparticle modes are the dominant ones, or in a study of additional decay modes, bringing information on the SUSY scenario potentially at work. We will focus on the most promising channel where the heavy neutral Higgses decay into a pair of next-to-lightest neutralinos, followed by their decay into two leptons and the LSP, thus leading to four isolated leptons + missing E_T as the main final state signature. A study with the CMS detector shows that the background (SM + SUSY) can be sufficiently suppressed and that in the mass region between m_A = 230 and 450 GeV, for low and intermediate values of tan beta, the signal would be visible provided neutralinos and sleptons are light enough.