The second lightest CP-even Higgs boson signals in the NMSSM at the LHC

Abstract

We study the signal rates of the second lightest CP-even Higgs boson, $h_2$, of the NMSSM produced in gluon fusion, in association with bottom quarks and in association with top quarks, which is not the SM-like Higgs boson, at the LHC. We evaluate the production rates of the $h_2$ in the SM fermionic and bosonic final states in addition to $a_1a_1$, $h_1h_1$ and $Za_1$ final states. It is observed that the size of the signal rates in some regions of the NMSSM parameter space is quite large and that could help extracting the $h_2$ signals at the LHC through a variety of decay channels.