Light scalar production from Higgs bosons and FASER 2
Abstract
The most general renormalizable interaction between the Higgs sector and a new gauge-singlet scalar S is governed by two interaction terms: cubic and quartic. The quartic interaction is only loosely constrained by invisible Higgs decays. Given current experimental limits about 10\% of all Higgs bosons created at the LHC can be converted to new scalars with the mass up to m Higgs/2. This can significantly extend the reach of the LHC-based Intensity Frontier experiments. We analyze the sensitivity of the FASER experiment to this model and discuss modest changes in the FASER 2 design that would allow to explore an orders-of-magnitude wider part of the Higgs portal's parameter space.
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