The LHC di-photon Higgs signal predicted by little Higgs models

Abstract

Little Higgs theory naturally predicts a light Higgs boson whose most important discovery channel at the LHC is the di-photon signal $pp\to h\to \gamma\gamma$. In this work we perform a comparative study for this signal in some typical little Higgs models, namely the littlest Higgs model (LH), two littlest Higgs models with T-parity (named LHT-I and LHT-II) and the simplest little Higgs modes (SLH). We find that compared with the Standard Model prediction, the di-photon signal rate is always suppressed and the suppression extent can be quite different for different models. The suppression is mild ($\lsim 10%$) in the LH model but can be quite severe ($\simeq 90%$) in other three models. This means that discovering the light Higgs boson predicted by the little Higgs theory through the di-photon channel at the LHC will be more difficult than discovering the SM Higgs boson.