Prospects for exotic $h\to 4\tau$ decays in single and di-Higgs boson production at the LHC and future hadron colliders

Abstract

We study the prospects for observing exotic decays of the Standard Model Higgs boson $h$ into light beyond the Standard Model scalars $a$ with mass $m_a\lesssim m_h/2$ in the single Higgs and Higgs pair production channels at the high luminosity run of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). Discovery prospects for single Higgs production in the gluon-gluon fusion and vector boson fusion modes with the Higgs boson decaying via the exotic mode $h\to aa\to 4\tau$ are analyzed at the HL-LHC. The projected sensitivity for exotic Higgs decays in the non-resonant Higgs pair production channel $pp\to hh\to (h\to b\bar{b})(h\to aa\to 4\tau )\to 2b4\tau$ at the HL-LHC and a future $\sqrt{s}=100$TeV hadron collider (FCC-hh) are also estimated. Furthermore, we study HL-LHC's potential reach for the Higgs-strahlung process in the $2b4\tau$ channel, taking into account the contamination from non-resonant Higgs pair production. Finally, the potential reach for resonant Higgs pair production in the $2b4\tau$ channel %$pp\to H\to (h\to b\bar{b})(h\to aa\to 4\tau )$ at the HL-LHC is also explored for several choices of $\{m_H,m_a\}$. Our studies suggest that significant improvements over existing bounds are achievable in several production channels, motivating new dedicated searches for $h\to aa\to 4\tau$ at the HL-LHC and future colliders.

Comments: 59 pages, 18 figures, 15 tables