Effective connections of $a_\mu$, Higgs physics, and the collider frontier

Abstract

We consider scalar extensions of the SM and their effective field theoretic generalisations to illustrate the phenomenological connection between precision measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon $a_\mu$, precision Higgs measurements, and direct collider sensitivity. To this end, we consider charged BSM scalar sectors of the Zee-Babu type for which we develop a consistent, and complete dimensions-5 and -6 effective field theory extension. This enables us to track generic new physics effects that interact with the SM predominantly via radiative interactions. While the operator space is high dimensional, the intersection of exotics searches at the Large Hadron Collider, Higgs signal strength and anomalous muon magnetic measurements is manageably small. We find that consistency of LHC Higgs observations and $a_\mu$ requires a significant deformation of the new states' electroweak properties. Evidence in searches for doubly charged scalars as currently pursued by the LHC experiments can be used to further tension the BSMEFT parameter space and resolve blind directions in the EFT-extended Zee-Babu scenario.