Constraining the Unhiggs with LHC data

Abstract

Recent measurements by the ATLAS and CMS experiments have excluded the Standard Model Higgs boson in the high mass region, even if it is produced with a significantly smaller cross section than expected. The bounds are dominated by the non-observation of a signal in the clean gold-plated mode $h\to ZZ\to 4\ell$ and, hence, are directly related to the special role of the Higgs in electroweak symmetry breaking. A smaller cross section in comparison to the Standard Model is expected if the Higgs is realized as an unparticle in the Unhiggs scenario. With the LHC probing $\sigma/\sigma^{SM}<1$, we can therefore reinterpret the $h\to ZZ\to 4\ell$ exclusion limits as bounds on the Unhiggs' scaling dimension. Throughout the high Higgs mass range, where we expect a large signal in the presence of the Standard Model Higgs for the 2011 ATLAS and CMS data sets, the observed limits translate into mild bounds on the Unhiggs scaling dimension in the high mass region.