Summary

The concept of the presented scenarios is the following. The signature in question is the decay of a heavy Higgs scalar (or a heavy pseudoscalar ) into a SM-like Higgs boson and another singlet-like Higgs (or ):

A summary of benchmark lines is visualized here:

for decays into and final states, and for decays into the final state. The lines denote the maximum cross section times branching ratio that the NMSSM scans gave.

The lines in root format are available here: HXSG_NMSSM_recommendations_00.root

Short description

The lines correspond to the maximum cross-section times branching ratio allowed in the (real) NMSSM after experimental constraints from Higgs boson measurements, searches for supersymmetry, B-meson physics and dark matter detection as implemented in the used codes NMSSMTools 5.5.0 [1] and NMSSMCALC [2].

[1] U.~Ellwanger, J.~F.~Gunion and C.~Hugonie, JHEP {\bf 0502} (2005) 066, [hep-ph/0406215], and U.~Ellwanger and C.~Hugonie, Comput.\ Phys.\ Commun.\ {\bf 175} (2006) 290 [hep-ph/0508022]. (https://www.lupm.univ-montp2.fr/users/nmssm/codes.html)

[2] J.~Baglio, R.~Gröber, M.~Mühlleitner, D.~T.~Nhung, H.~Rzehak, M.~Spira, J.~Streicher and K.~Walz, Comput.\ Phys.\ Commun.\ {\bf 185} (2014) no.12, 3372, [arXiv:1312.4788 [hep-ph]]. (https://www.itp.kit.edu/~maggie/NMSSMCALC/)

Long description

The masses of the NMSSM-specific mostly singlet-like scalar and pseudoscalar bosons and (which are NOT degenerate) are not constrained by present searches for BSM Higgs bosons if their couplings to SM particles are very small, which is the case in most regions of the NMSSM parameter space. Then their direct production cross sections are very small as well.

However, they can be produced in decays of mostly MSSM-like scalar or pseudoscalar bosons and which exist in the NMSSM as well. The branching fractions for and can be large, even dominant, even for pure singlet-like and . In this case the constraints from searches for and in other final states like tautau or bb would be considerably alleviated.

This motivates the search for resonant pair production of and . A difficulty is that both processes involve two unknown masses and , respectively, but the final states are not very different from those in H_125 pair production.

Benchmark points for these processes including production cross sections times branching fractions (Xsect*BR) have been presented previously in 1408.1120, 1707.08522, 1901.02332 and on the twiki page NMSSMBenchmarkPoints for various choices of the involved masses and final states. Promising final states are , or , and (from ) + (from ).

In the figures below we show maximally possible Xsect*BRs in the NMSSM parameter space consistent with a) constraints on rates and searches for BSM Higgs bosons (from HiggsBounds/HiggsSignals) b) constraints from dark matter direct detection (asking for a relic density equal to or below the WMAP bound) c) constraints from sparticle searches, B-physics and LEP.

These maximally possible Xsect*BRs have been obtained by the codes NMSSMTools_5.5.0 and NMSSMCALC. Due to the different implementation of radiative corrections the maximally possible Xsect*BRs differ somewhat by up to ~13% which we consider as a theoretical uncertainty.

It turns out that the maximally possible Xsect*BRs for or are always ~10% of the maximally possible Xsect*BRs for . The maximally possible Xsect*BRs for can be relatively large since the BR( ) can be up to ~90%.

Of course, both sets of maximally possible Xsect*BRs decrease with the masses of and as shown in the figures. (The combination of the above constraints imply lower limits on the masses of and which are stronger than those from direct searches for and .) On the other hand the maximally possible Xsect*BRs depend little on the masses of and , so we concentrate on ~100-110 GeV and ~100-103 GeV, motivated by possible excesses in searches for BSM Higgs bosons in this mass range. But we underline that searches should not be confined to the shown mass values. An additional info is that the widths of the heavy resonances vary from ~2 GeV up to ~14 GeV for masses up to 1 TeV.

More Benchmark points

for

(Status 2020, produced 2/2022 using NMSSMTools)

-- RompotisNikolaos - 2020-03-16