Article

Mono-Higgs-boson: A new collider probe of dark matter

Linda M. CarpenterDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio 43210, USAAnthony DiFranzoDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USAMichael MulhearnDepartment of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USAChase Owen ShimminDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USASean TulinDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USAD. WhitesonDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA

2014en

ABI

Abstract

We explore the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) phenomenology of dark matter (DM) pair production in association with a 125-GeV Higgs boson. This signature, dubbed ``mono-Higgs,'' appears as a single Higgs boson plus missing energy from DM particles escaping the detector. We perform an LHC background study for mono-Higgs signals at $\sqrt{s}=8$ and 14 TeV for four Higgs boson decay channels: $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}$, $b\overline{b}$, $Z{Z}^{*}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}4\ensuremath{\ell}$, and $\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\ell}jj$. We estimate the LHC sensitivities to a variety of new physics scenarios within the frameworks of both effective operators and simplified models. For all of these scenarios, the $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ channel provides the best sensitivity, whereas the $b\overline{b}$ channel suffers from a large $t\overline{t}$ background. Mono-Higgs is unlike other mono-$X$ searches ($X=\text{jet}$, photon, etc.) since the Higgs boson is unlikely to be radiated as initial state radiation and therefore probes the underlying DM vertex directly.

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.89.075017

Citations and references

Cited by 20 references

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