Higgsstrahlung from R-hadrons

Abstract

If R hadrons are discovered at the LHC, investigation of their properties will be of paramount importance. One important question is how much of the R-hadron mass is due to electroweak symmetry breaking, i.e. the coupling of the Higgs to R-hadrons. In this paper we show that in models where the Higgs has a sizable coupling to R-hadrons we can readily observe Higgs production in association with a pair of R-hadrons ("Higgsstrahlung"). This process can be used to distinguish between different models of R-hadrons. It may be the discovery mode of the Higgs for low mass Higgs bosons, and provides a low-background Higgs sample to study h to bb.