Next to Minimal Higgs : Mass Bounds and Search Prospects

Abstract

The Standard Model of electroweak interactions has one scalar doublet. The minimal extension of this sector is effected by adding a neutral, singlet scalar field. Depending on whether the singlet field has a non-zero vacuum expectation value, x, or not, the scenario has quite distinctive predictions. In particular, x unequal to 0 produces a mixing between the usual SU(2) doublet and the singlet, giving rise to two physical states and a goldstone boson with non-vanishing coupling to these. Presence of this coupling modifies the 2 jets + missing energy signal of the Bjorken process at LEP. We update the bounds on the Higgs mass using the LEP-1 data. We then explore, using parton-level Monte Carlo event generators, the production of these scalars at the LHC via gluon-gluon fusion and subsequent detection. We compare the signals with the expected backgrounds.