Radiative Return for Heavy Higgs Boson at a Muon Collider

Abstract

Higgs boson properties could be studied with a high accuracy at a muon collider via the s-channel resonant production. We consider the situation where the center-of-mass energy of the muon collider is off the resonance above the Higgs mass. We discuss the discovery potential for a generic heavy Higgs boson ($H$) and compare different production mechanisms, including the "radiative return" ($\gamma H$), $Z$-boson associated production ($ZH$) and heavy Higgs pair production ($HA$). These production mechanisms do not sensitively rely on a priori knowledge of the heavy Higgs boson mass. We include various types of Two Higgs Doublet Models for the comparison. We conclude that the radiative return process could provide an important option for both the heavy Higgs discovery and direct measurement of invisible decays at a high energy muon collider.