Impact of additional bosons on the exploration of the Higgs boson at the LHC

Abstract

The LHC is making strides in the exploration of the properties of the newly discoverd Higgs boson, $h$. In Refs.~\cite{vonBuddenbrock:2015ema,Kumar:2016vut,vonBuddenbrock:2016rmr} the compatibility of the proton-proton data reported in the Run I period with the presence of a heavy scalar, $H$, with a mass around 270\,GeV and its implications were explored. This boson would decay predominantly to $H\to Sh$, where $S$, is a lighter scalar boson. The production cross-section of $pp\to H(\to Sh)+X$ is considerable and it would significantly affect the inclusive rate of $h$. The contamination from this new production mechanism would depend strongly on the final state used to measure the rate of $h$. The contamination in the rate measurement of $Vh(\to b\overline{b}),V=Z,W$ is estimated to be small. This statement does not depend strongly on assumptions made on the decay of $S$.

Comments: Submitted to the White Paper of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Institute of Advanced Studies High Energy Physics Conference 2017