Hiding a Higgs width enhancement from off-shell gg (--> h*) --> ZZ measurements

Abstract

Measurements of the off-shell Higgs boson production cross section in gg (--> h*) --> ZZ have recently been used by the CMS and ATLAS collaborations to indirectly constrain the total width of the Higgs boson. I point out that the interpretation of these measurements as a Higgs width constraint can be invalidated if additional neutral Higgs boson(s) are present with masses below about 350 GeV.

Comments: 5 pages, 1 figure. v2: refs added, minor improvements to text. v3: expanded discussion, refs added, version accepted by PRD