Gravitational wave and collider probes of a triplet Higgs sector with a low cutoff

Abstract

We study the scalar triplet extension of the standard model with a low cutoff, preventing large corrections to the quadratic masses that would otherwise worsen the hierarchy problem. We explore the reach of LISA to test the parameter space region of the scalar potential (not yet excluded by Higgs to diphoton measurements) in which the electroweak phase transition is strongly first-order and produces sizeable gravitational waves. We also demonstrate that the collider phenomenology of the model is drastically different from its renormalizable counterpart. We study the reach of the LHC in ongoing searches and project bounds for the HL-LHC. Likewise, we develop a dedicated analysis to test the key but still unexplored signature of pair-production of charged scalars decaying to third-generation quarks: $pp\rightarrow t\overline{b} (\overline{t}b), b\overline{b}$. These results apply straightforwardly to other extensions of the Higgs sector such as the 2HDM/MSSM.