Oct 2019 - Sept 2020

Monika Blanke, "Spotting hidden sectors with Higgs binoculars"

Europe/London
Description

We explore signals of new physics with two Higgs bosons and large missing transverse energy at the LHC. Such a signature is characteristic of models for dark matter or other secluded particles that couple to the standard model through an extended scalar sector. Our goal is to provide search strategies and an interpretation framework for this new signature that are applicable to a large class of models. To this end, we define simplified models of hidden sectors leading to two different event topologies: symmetric decay, i.e., pair-produced mediators decaying each into a Higgs plus
invisible final state; and di-Higgs resonance, i.e., resonant Higgs-pair production recoiling against a pair of invisible particles.