Search for neutral Higgs bosons in CP-conserving and CP-violating MSSM scenarios

This report summarizes the final results from the OPAL collaboration on searches for neutral Higgs bosons predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). CP-conserving and, for the first time at LEP, CP-violating scenarios are studied. New scenarios are also included, which aim to set the stage for Higgs searches at future colliders. The results are based on the data collected with the OPAL detector at e ⁺ e^- centre-of-mass energies up to 209 GeV. The data are consistent with the prediction of the Standard Model with no Higgs boson produced. Model-independent limits are derived for the cross-sections of a number of event topologies motivated by predictions of the MSSM. Limits on Higgs boson masses and other MSSM parameters are obtained for a number of representative MSSM benchmark scenarios. For example, in the CP-conserving scenario m _h-max where the MSSM parameters are adjusted to predict the largest range of values for m _h at each , and for a top quark mass of 174.3 GeV, the domain is excluded at the 95% confidence level and Higgs boson mass limits of m _h > 84.5 GeV and m _A > 85.0 GeV are obtained. For the CP-violating benchmark scenario CPX which, by construction, enhances the CP-violating effects in the Higgs sector, the domain is excluded but no universal limit can be set on the Higgs boson masses.Received: 6 April 2004, Revised: 8 June 2004, Published online: 12 August 2004     

Associated production of a light Higgs boson and a chargino pair in the MSSM at linear colliders

In the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), we study the light Higgs boson radiation off a light-chargino pair in the process at linear colliders with GeV. We analyze cross sections in the regions of the MSSM parameter space where the process cannot proceed via on-shell production and subsequent decay of either heavier charginos or the pseudoscalar Higgs boson A. Cross sections up to a few fb are allowed, according to present experimental limits on the Higgs boson, chargino and sneutrino masses. We also show how a measurement of the production rate could provide a determination of the Higgs boson couplings to charginos.Received: 24 June 2004, Revised: 13 May 2005, Published online: 19 July 2005     

Minimal left-right symmetric models and new <Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>’ properties at future electron-positron colliders

It was recently shown that left-right symmetric models for elementary particles can be built with only two Higgs doublets. The general consequence of these models is that the left and right fermionic sectors can be connected by a new neutral gauge boson Z having its mass as the only additional new parameter. In this paper we study the influence of the fundamental fermionic representation for this new neutral gauge boson. Signals of possible new heavy neutral gauge bosons are investigated for the future electron-positron colliders at GeV, 1 TeV and 3 TeV. The total cross sections, forward-backward and left-right asymmetries and model differences are calculated for the process . Bounds on Z masses are estimated.Received: 4 May 2004, Revised: 22 September 2004, Published online: 9 November 2004     

Quantum-hydrodynamical picture of the massive Higgs boson

The phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking admits a physical interpretation in terms of the Bose condensation process of elementary spinless quanta. In this picture, the broken-symmetry phase emerges as a real physical medium, endowed with a hierarchical pattern of scales, supporting two types of elementary excitations for : a massive energy branch , corresponding to the usual Higgs boson field, and a collective gapless branch . This is similar to the coexistence of phonons and rotons in superfluid ⁴He that, in fact, is usually considered the condensed-matter analog of the Higgs condensate. After previous work dedicated to the properties of the gapless phonon branch, in this paper we use quantum hydrodynamics to propose a physical interpretation of the massive branch. On the base of our results, M_H coincides with the energy gap for vortex formation and a massive Higgs boson is like a roton in superfluid ⁴He. Within this interpretation of the Higgs particle, there is no naturalness problem since M_H remains a naturally intermediate, fixed energy scale, even for an ultimate ultraviolet cutoff .Received: 24 November 2003, Published online: 29 January 2004     

Searches for neutral Higgs bosons in extended models

Searches for neutral Higgs bosons produced at LEP in association with Z bosons, in pairs and in the Yukawa process are presented in this paper. Higgs boson decays into b quarks, leptons, or other Higgs bosons are considered, giving rise to four-b, four-b + jets, six-b and four- final states, as well as mixed modes with b quarks and leptons. The whole mass domain kinematically accessible at LEP in these topologies is searched. The analysed data set covers both the LEP1 and LEP2 energy ranges and exploits most of the luminosity recorded by the DELPHI experiment. No convincing evidence for a signal is found, and results are presented in the form of mass-dependent upper bounds on coupling factors (in units of model-independent reference cross-sections) for all processes, allowing interpretation of the data in a large class of models.Received: 26 October 2003, Revised: 1 September 2004, Published online: 28 October 2004     

Hunting a light <Emphasis Type="Italic">CP</Emphasis>-violating Higgs boson via diffraction at the LHC

We study the central diffractive production of the (three neutral) Higgs bosons, with a rapidity gap on either side, in an MSSM scenario with CP-violation. We consider the and decay for the light H₁ boson and the four b-jet final state for the heavy H₂ and H₃ bosons, and discuss the corresponding backgrounds. A direct indication of the existence of CP-violation can come from the observation of either an azimuthal asymmetry in the angular distribution of the tagged forward protons (for the exclusive process) or of a contribution in the azimuthal correlation between the transverse energy flows in the proton fragmentation regions for the process with the diffractive dissociation of both incoming protons ( ). We emphasise the advantage of reactions with the rapidity gaps (that is, production by pomeron-pomeron fusion) to probe CP-parity and to determine the quantum numbers of the produced central object.Received: 16 January 2004, Published online: 31 March 2004     

Diffractive $\gamma \gamma$ production at hadron colliders

We compute the cross section for exclusive double-diffractive production at the Tevatron, , and the LHC. We evaluate both the gg and -channel exchange contributions to the process. The observation of exclusive production at the Tevatron will provide a check on the model predictions and offer an opportunity to confirm the expectations for exclusive double-diffractive Higgs production at the LHC.Received: 10 September 2004, Revised: 8 October 2004, Published online: 1 December 2004     

M easur em ent of th e $\mathit{H Z\gamma}$ coupling at th e futur e lin ear e+ e- collid er

We examine the prospects for measuring the coupling of a standard model-like Higgs boson with a mass between 120 and 160 GeV at the future TESLA linear e ⁺ e ^- collider, assuming an integrated luminosity of 1 ab^-1 and a center-of-mass energy of 500 GeV. We consider the Higgs boson produced in association with via the W W fusion reaction , followed by the rare decay into a Z boson and a photon, . Accounting for all main background contributions, a precision of 27% can be achieved in unpolarized e ⁺ e ^- collisions for M _H = 140 GeV. With appropriate initial state polarisations BF( )/BF( ), or the precisions on the partial width, can be improved to 17% and provide valuable information on the coupling. For M _H = 120 and 160 GeV, the small significance of the signals in unpolarized collisions sets upper limits of 79% respectively 72% at 90% confidence level on the branching fraction.Received: 5 March 2003, Revised: 14 July 2003, Published online: 5 September 2003     

Search for charged Higgs bosons at LEP in general two Higgs doublet models

A search for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons was performed in the data collected by the DELPHI detector at LEP II at centre-of-mass energies from 189 GeV to 209 GeV. Five different final states, , , , and were considered, accounting for the major expected decays in type I and type II Two Higgs Doublet Models. No significant excess of data compared to the expected Standard Model processes was observed. The existence of a charged Higgs boson with mass lower than 76.7 GeV/c² (type I) or 74.4 GeV/c² (type II) is excluded at the 95% confidence level, for a wide range of the model parameters. Model independent cross-section limits have also been calculated.Received: 30 September 2003, Revised: 12 February 2004, Published online: 8 April 2004     

Measurement of triple gauge boson couplings at an $e\gamma$-collider

If no light Higgs boson exists, the interaction among the gauge bosons becomes strong at high energies ( ). The effects of strong electroweak symmetry breaking (SEWSB) could manifest themselves indirectly as anomalous couplings before they give rise to new physical states like resonances. Here a study of the measurement of trilinear gauge couplings is presented looking at the hadronic decay channel of the W boson at an -collider. A sensitivity in the range of 10^-3 to 10^-4 can be reached depending on the coupling under consideration.Received: 5 October 2004, Published online: 17 December 2004     

Searches for invisibly decaying Higgs bosonswith the DELPHI detector at LEP

Searches for H Z production with the Higgs boson decaying into an invisible final state were performed using the data collected by the DELPHI experiment at centre-of-mass energies between 188 GeV and 209 GeV. Both hadronic and leptonic final states of the Z boson were analysed. In addition to the search for a heavy Higgs boson, a dedicated search for a light Higgs boson down to 40 GeV/c² was performed. No signal was found. Assuming the Standard Model HZ production cross-section, the mass limit for invisibly decaying Higgs bosons is 112.1 GeV/c² at 95% confidence level. An interpretation in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) and in a Majoron model is also given.Received: 2 September 2003, Revised: 10 November 2003, Published online: 15 January 2004     

Anomalous gauge-boson couplings and the Higgs-boson mass

We study anomalous gauge-boson couplings induced by a locally SU(2) × U(1) invariant effective Lagrangian containing ten operators of dimension six built from boson fields of the standard model (SM) before spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). After SSB some operators lead to new three- and four-gauge-boson interactions, some contribute to the diagonal and off-diagonal kinetic terms of the gauge bosons, to the kinetic term of the Higgs boson and to the mass terms of the W and Z bosons. This requires a renormalisation of the gauge-boson fields, which, in turn, modifies the charged- and neutral-current interactions, although none of the additional operators contain fermion fields. Also the Higgs field must be renormalised. Bounds on the anomalous couplings from electroweak precision measurements at LEP and SLC are correlated with the Higgs-boson mass m_H. Rather moderate values of anomalous couplings allow m_H up to 500 GeV. At a future linear collider the triple-gauge-boson couplings and ZWW can be measured in the reaction . We compare three approaches to anomalous gauge-boson couplings: the form-factor approach, the addition of anomalous-coupling terms to the SM Lagrangian after and, as outlined above, before SSB. The translation of the bounds on the couplings from one approach to another is not straightforward. We show that it can be done for the process by defining new effective and ZWW couplings.Received: 8 June 2004, Revised: 26 January 2005, Published online: 8 June 2005     

Determining resonance parameters of heavy Higgs bosonsat a future linear collider

This study investigates the potential of an Electron-Positron Linear Collider for measuring resonance parameters of Higgs bosons beyond the mass range studied so far. The analysis is based on the reconstruction of events from the Higgs-strahlung process . It is shown that the total width , the mass m_H and the event rate N can be measured from the mass spectrum in a model independent way. Also, the branching ratios BR ^H_WW and BR ^H_ZZ can be measured, assuming these are the only relevant Higgs decay modes. The simulation includes realistic detector effects and all relevant Standard Model background processes. Results are given for m_H = 200-320 GeV assuming fb^-1 integrated luminosity at a collision energy GeV.Received: 13 February 2004, Revised: 14 April 2004, Published online: 18 May 2004     

Production of Charged Higgs Bosons from Left-Right Twin Higgs Model at TeV Energy e-γ Colliders

The left-right twin Higgs （LRTH） model predicts the existence of three additional Higgs bosons： one neutral Higgs φo and a pair of charged Higgs bosons φ±. In this paper, we study two pair production processes of these new particles at the next generation eγ colliders, i.e., e-γ → e-φ＋φ- , and e-γ→vRφ-φ0. We find that the production cross section of the process e-γ → e-φ＋φ- are at the level of several tens fb, the production cross section of the process e-γ→vRφ-φ0 can reach 0.35 fb with the reasonable parameter values. As long as the charged Higgs bosons are not too heavy, we conclude that these processes might be used to test for the left-right twin Higgs model in future high-energy linear collider experiments.     

Branching Fraction Measurements of the SM Higgs with a Mass of 160 GeV at Future Linear e + e − Colliders

Assuming an integrated luminosity of 500 fb^–1 and a center-of-mass energy of 350 GeV, we examine the prospects for measuring branching fractions of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a mass of 160 GeV at the future linear e⁺e^–collider TESLA when the Higgs boson is produced via the Higgsstrahlung mechanism, e⁺e^– HZ. The Higgs boson mass chosen close to the W pair threshold covers a mass regime with complicated background structures. We study in detail including some detector responds the precisions achievable for the branching fractions of the Higgs boson into WW^(*), ZZ^* and , whereas the measurement of BF(H ) remains a great challenge. Expectations for the total Higgs width are discussed using either the BF(Z ZZ^*) measurement of this study and the expected error for the inclusive Higgsstrahlung cross section or in addition the precise cross section expected for the weak boson fusion process, e⁺e^– v H, or W,Z-universality.     

Projective Structure,Symplectic Connection and Quantization

Let X be a connected Riemann surface equipped with a projective structure . Let E be a holomorphic symplectic vector bundle over X equipped with a flat connection. There is a holomorphic symplectic structure on the total space of the pullback of E to the space of all nonzero holomorphic cotangent vectors on X. Using , this symplectic form is quantized. A moduli space of Higgs bundles on a compact Riemann surface has a natural holomorphic symplectic structure. Using , a quantization of this symplectic form over a Zariski open subset of the moduli space of Higgs bundles is constructed.     

The standard model process e^ + e^ - \to \nu \bar \nu b\bar b and its Higgs signal at LEP II

We present and study the results for the standard model process $e^ + e^ - \to \nu \bar \nu b\bar b$ at c.m. energies 150 ≤ √s(GeV) ≤ 240 and for Higgs boson masses 60 GeV ≤ m _H ≤ 110 GeV, obtained from all tree-level diagrams and including the most important radiative corrections. The matrix elements have been calculated by the ‘spinor bracket’ method without neglecting masses, which is presented in detail. The √s-dependence and the interference properties of the Higgs boson contributions and of various coherent background contributions to the total cross section are examined and compared. The important differential distributions for the Higgs boson and the background components are studied, providing information useful for choosing cuts in Higgs searches. We also examine the effect of a minimal set of cuts and evaluate the importance of the WW fusion for detecting a higher mass Higgs boson at LEP II.     

Search for Higgs Boson in UHE Cosmic Rays

Considering the SM Higgs boson mass in the range of (95–235) GeV, we present here a mechanism for indirect searches of this scalar in UHE cosmic rays interactions. The mechanism is the decay of Higgs bosons which are produced through bubble formation due to vacuum excitation in an UHE cosmic rays interactions with air nuclei. We develop a model of hadronic interaction based on algorithms of the GENCL code of the UA5 experiment of CERN and some physics of CORSIKA code (Karlsruhe report), incorporating a fraction of energy transfer to bubble formation through vacuum excitation and subsequent multiparticle production via conversion of Higgs boson to heavy fermion pairs. Such events are expected to have high multiplicity and excess muons. This mechanism has significant effect starting from E _P 10¹⁸eV. It is found that the average muon number decreases gradually upto 175 GeV Higgs boson mass and remain practically constant thereafter for all primary energies (E _P) above 10¹⁸ eV and for all fractions of energy transfer (f _e 0.01–0.5). The fluctuation of muon multiplicity decreases with E _P and increases very slowly with Higgs mass upto 175 GeV, remaining practically invariant thereafter.     

MSSM Higgs boson searches at the Tevatron and the LHC: Impact of different benchmark scenarios

The Higgs boson search has shifted from LEP2 to the Tevatron and will subsequently move to the LHC. The current limits from the Tevatron and the prospective sensitivities at the LHC are often interpreted in specific MSSM scenarios. For heavy Higgs boson production and subsequent decay into or τ⁺τ^–, the present Tevatron data allow one to set limits in the M_A–tan β plane for small M_A and large tan β values. Similar channels have been explored for the LHC, where the discovery reach extends to higher values of M_A and smaller tan β. Searches for MSSM charged Higgs bosons, produced in top decays or in association with top quarks, have also been investigated at the Tevatron and the LHC. We analyze the current Tevatron limits and prospective LHC sensitivities. We discuss how robust they are with respect to variations of the other MSSM parameters and possible improvements of the theoretical predictions for Higgs boson production and decay. It is shown that the inclusion of supersymmetric radiative corrections to the production cross sections and decay widths leads to important modifications of the present limits on the MSSM parameter space. The impact on the region where only the lightest MSSM Higgs boson can be detected at the LHC is also analyzed. We propose to extend the existing benchmark scenarios by including additional values of the higgsino mass parameter μ. This affects only slightly the search channels for a SM-like Higgs boson, while having a major impact on the searches for non-standard MSSM Higgs bosons.     

One-loop electroweak factorizable correctionsfor the Higgsstrahlung at a linear collider

We present standard model predictions for the four-fermion reaction being one of the best detection channels of a low-mass Higgs boson produced through the Higgsstrahlung mechanism at a linear collider. We include leading virtual and real QED corrections due to initial state radiation and a modification of the Higgs- Yukawa coupling, caused by the running of the b-quark mass, for . The complete electroweak corrections to Z-Higgs production and to the Z-boson decay width, as well as the remaining QCD and EW corrections to the Higgs decay width, as can be calculated with the program HDECAY, are taken into account in the double-pole approximation. Received: 17 March 2005, Revised: 30 March 2005, Published online: 30 August 2005 Work supported in part by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research in years 2004-2006 as a research grant, by the European Community's Human Potential Program under contracts HPRN-CT-2000-00149 Physics at Colliders and CT-2002-00311 EURIDICE, and by DFG under Contract SFB/TR 9-03.