Blind Spots for neutralino Dark Matter in the MSSM with an intermediate m_A

We study the spin-independent neutralino Dark Matter scattering off heavy nuclei in the MSSM. We identify analytically the blind spots in direct detection for intermediate values of $m_A$. In the region where $\mu$ and $M_{1,2}$ have opposite signs, there is not only a reduction of the lightest CP-even Higgs coupling to neutralinos, but also a destructive interference between the neutralino scattering through the exchange of the lightest CP-even Higgs and that through the exchange of the heaviest CP-even Higgs. At critical values of $m_A$, the tree-level contribution from the light Higgs exchange cancels the contribution from the heavy Higgs, so the scattering cross section vanishes. We denote these configurations as blind spots, since they provide a generalization of the ones previously discussed in the literature, which occur at very large values of $m_A$. We show that the generalized blind spots may occur in regions of parameter space that are consistent with the obtention of the proper neutralino relic density, and can be tested by non-standard Higgs boson searches and EWino searches at the LHC and future linear colliders.Comment: 25pages, 7 figures, v2:references and one paragraph added, v3: discussion about collider searches added, accepted by PR

Enhancing the Higgs associated production with a top quark pair

It is pointed out that in a wide class of models reminiscent of type-II Two-Higgs-Doublet Models (2HDM) the signal of the Higgs produced in association with a top-antitop quark pair ($tth$) and decaying into gauge bosons can be significantly larger than the Standard Model (SM) prediction without violating any experimental constraints. The crucial feature of these models is enhanced (suppressed) Higgs coupling to top (bottom) quarks and existence of light colored particles that give negative contribution to the effective Higgs coupling to gluons resulting in the gluon fusion rates in the gauge boson decay channels close to SM predictions. We demonstrate this mechanism in NMSSM with light stops and show that $tth$ signal in the $WW$ decay channel can be two times larger than the SM prediction, as suggested by the excesses observed by ATLAS and CMS, provided that the Higgs-singlet superpotential coupling $\lambda\gtrsim0.8$ and the MSSM-like Higgs boson masses are in the range of 160 to 300 GeV.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; v2:comments and references added, matches published versio

CP-odd component of the lightest neutral Higgs boson in the MSSM

The Higgs sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Extension of the Standard Model may be described with a two Higgs doublet model with properties that depend on the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters. For instance, flavor independent CP-violating phases associated with the gaugino masses, the squark trilinear mass parameters and the Higgsino mass parameter $\mu$ may lead to sizable CP-violation in the Higgs sector. For these CP-violating effects to affect the properties of the recently observed SM-like Higgs resonance, the non-standard charged and neutral Higgs bosons masses must be of the order of the weak scale, and both $\mu$ as well as the trilinear stop mass parameter $A_t$ must be of the order or larger than the stop mass parameters. Constraints on this possibility come from direct searches for non-standard Higgs bosons, precision measurements on the lightest neutral Higgs properties, including its mass, and electric dipole moments. In this article, we discuss these constraints within the MSSM, trying to evaluate the possible size of the CP-odd component of the lightest neutral Higgs boson, and the possible experimental tests of this CP-violating effect at the LHC.Comment: 35 pages, 13 figure

Modification of Higgs Couplings in Minimal Composite Models

We present a comprehensive study of the modifications of Higgs couplings in the SO(5)/SO(4) minimal composite model. We focus on three couplings of central importance to Higgs phenomenology at the LHC: the couplings to top and bottom quarks and the coupling to two gluons. We consider three possible embeddings of the fermionic partners in 5, 10 and 14 of SO(5) and find tth and bbh couplings to be always suppressed in 5 and 10, while in 14 they can be either enhanced or suppressed. Assuming partial compositeness, we analyze the interplay between the tth coupling and the top sector contribution to the Coleman-Weinberg potential for the Higgs boson, and the correlation between tth and ggh couplings. In particular, if the electroweak symmetry breaking is triggered radiatively by the top sector, we demonstrate that the ratio of the tth coupling in composite Higgs models over the Standard Model expectation is preferred to be less than the corresponding ratio of the ggh coupling.Comment: 42 pages, 14 figures; Added reference

Precise Estimates of the Higgs Mass in Heavy SUSY

In supersymmetric models, very heavy stop squarks introduce large logarithms into the computation of the Higgs boson mass. Although it has long been known that in simple cases these logs can be resummed using effective field theory techniques, it is technically easier to use fixed-order formulas, and many public codes implement the latter. We calculate three- and four-loop next-to-next-to-leading-log corrections to the Higgs mass and compare the fixed order formulas numerically to the resummation results in order to estimate the range of supersymmetry scales where the fixed-order results are reliable. We find that the four-loop result may be accurate up to a few tens of TeV. We confirm an accidental cancellation between different three-loop terms, first observed in S. P. Martin, Phys. Rev. D 75, 055005 (2007), and show that it persists to higher scales and becomes more effective with the inclusion of higher radiative corrections. Existing partial three-loop calculations that include only one of the two cancelling terms may overestimate the Higgs mass. We give analytic expressions for the three- and four-loop corrections in terms of Standard Model parameters and provide a complete dictionary for translating parameters between the SM and the MSSM and the \MSbar and \DRbar renormalization schemes.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures. Added acknowledgments in v2. Corrected typos from published version in PRD in v

Prospects for Higgs Searches at the Tevatron and LHC in the MSSM with Explicit CP-violation

We analyze the Tevatron and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reach for the Higgs sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) in the presence of explicit CP-violation. Using the most recent studies from the Tevatron and LHC collaborations, we examine the CPX benchmark scenario for a range of CP-violating phases in the soft trilinear and gluino mass terms and compute the exclusion/discovery potentials for each collider on the $(M_{H^+}, \tan\beta)$ plane. Projected results from Standard Model (SM)-like, non-standard, and charged Higgs searches are combined to maximize the statistical significance. We exhibit complementarity between the SM-like Higgs searches at the LHC with low luminosity and the Tevatron, and estimate the combined reach of the two colliders in the early phase of LHC running.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures; References added, minor additions to Appendix

Very Light Charginos and Higgs Decays

We explore modifications to the loop-induced Higgs couplings h\gamma\gamma\ and h\gamma Z from light charginos in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. When the lightest chargino mass is above the naive LEP bound of order 100 GeV the effects are modest, with deviations in the decay branching ratios typically less than 15% from the Standard Model predictions. However, if the charginos are lighter than 100 GeV, more dramatic alterations to these couplings are possible as a consequence of the rise of the one loop form factor. For example, the diphoton signal strength can be enhanced by as much as 70% compared to the Standard Model value. We scrutinize in detail the existing LEP, Tevatron, and LHC searches and present a scenario in which a very light chargino with a mass as light as half the Higgs mass is hidden at LEP and is allowed by all direct collider constraints and electroweak precision tests. The scenario has a sneutrino LSP with a macroscopic decay length of order 10-100 cm. We outline potential search strategies to test this scenario at the LHC.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Bounding the Charm Yukawa

The study of the properties of the observed Higgs boson is one of the main research activities in High Energy Physics. Although the couplings of the Higgs to the weak gauge bosons and third generation quark and leptons have been studied in detail, little is known about the Higgs couplings to first and second generation fermions. In this article, we study the charm quark Higgs coupling in the so-called $\kappa$ framework. We emphasize the existence of specific correlations between the Higgs couplings that can render the measured LHC Higgs production rates close to the SM values in the presence of large deviations of the charm coupling from its SM value, $\kappa_c = 1$. Based on this knowledge, we update the indirect bounds on $\kappa_c$ through a fit to the precision Higgs measurements at the LHC. We also examine the limits on $\kappa_c$ arising from the radiative decay $H \to J/\psi + \gamma$, the charm quark-associated Higgs production, charm quark decays of the Higgs field and charge asymmetry in $W^{\pm} + H$ production. Estimates for the future LHC sensitivity on $\kappa_c$ at the high luminosity run are provided.Comment: Version published in Phys. Rev.

Prospects for MSSM Higgs Searches at the Tevatron

We analyze the Tevatron reach for neutral Higgs bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), using current exclusion limits on the Standard Model Higgs. We study four common benchmark scenarios for the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters of the MSSM, including cases where the Higgs decays differ significantly from the Standard Model, and provide projections for the improvements in luminosity and efficiency required for the Tevatron to probe sizeable regions of the $(m_A, \tan\beta)$ plane.Comment: 23 pages, 21 figures; References added, benchmark scenarios and figures updated, webpage link adde

Baryogenesis from an Earlier Phase Transition

We explore the possibility that the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe is the result of an earlier phase transition in which an extended gauge sector breaks down into the $SU(3)_C \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ of the Standard Model. Our proto-typical example is the Topflavor model, in which there is a separate $SU(2)_1$ for the third generation from the $SU(2)_2$ felt by the first two generations. We show that the breakdown of $SU(2)_1 \times SU(2)_2 \to SU(2)_L$ results in lepton number being asymmetrically distributed through-out the three families, and provided the SM electroweak phase transition is {\em not} strongly first order, results in a non-zero baryon number, which for parameter choices that can be explored at the LHC, may explain the observed baryon asymmetry.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR