Semidark Higgs boson decays: Sweeping the Higgs neutrino floor
J. A. Aguilar-Saavedra (Instituto de Fisica Teorica, IFT-UAM/CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain); J. M. Cano (Departamento de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain, Instituto de Fisica Teorica, IFT-UAM/CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain); D. G. Cerdeño (Departamento de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain, Instituto de Fisica Teorica, IFT-UAM/CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain); J. M. No (Departamento de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain, Instituto de Fisica Teorica, IFT-UAM/CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain)
We study exotic Higgs decays , with an invisible beyond the Standard Model (SM) particle, resulting in a semidark final state. Such exotic Higgs decays may occur in theories of axionlike particles (ALPs), dark photons or pseudoscalar mediators between the SM and dark matter. The SM process represents an irreducible “neutrino floor” background to these new physics searches, providing also a target experimental sensitivity for them. We analyze searches at the LHC and a future ILC, showing that these exotic Higgs decays can yield sensitivity to unexplored regions of parameter space for ALPs and dark matter models.