Search

The charged Higgs boson ($H^\pm$) with a mass below the top quark mass remains a viable possibility within the type-I two-Higgs-doublet model under current constraints. While previous LHC searches have primarily focused on the $H^\pm\to\tau\nu$ decay mode, the decay channel into an off-shell top quark and a bottom quark, $H^\pm \rightarrow t^*b$, is leading or subleading for $H^\pm$ masses between 130 and 170 GeV. This study investigates the discovery potential of future colliders for this off-shell decay mode through pair-produced charged Higgs bosons decaying via $H^+H^-\rightarrow t^*b\tau\nu\rightarrow bbjj\tau\nu$. We perform signal-to-background analyses at the HL-LHC and a prospective 100 TeV proton-proton collider, employing cut-flow strategies and the Boosted Decision Tree method. However, due to the softness of the $b$ jets, signal significances fall below detection thresholds at these facilities. Extending our study to a multi-TeV muon collider (MuC), we demonstrate that a 3 TeV MuC achieves high signal significance, surpassing the $5\sigma$ threshold with an integrated luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$, assuming a 10\% background uncertainty. Specifically, for $M_{H^\pm} = 130$, 150, and 170 GeV, the significances are 13.7, 13.5, and 6.06, respectively. In contrast, a 10 TeV MuC requires 10 ab$^{-1}$ to achieve similar results. Our findings highlight the critical role of the MuC in probing the new signal channel $H^\pm\rightarrow t^*b$, offering a promising avenue for future charged Higgs boson searches involving off-shell top quarks., Comment: 31 pages with 8 figures and 4 tables

In this study, we explore the phenomenological signatures associated with a light fermiophobic Higgs boson, $h_{\rm f}$, within the type-I two-Higgs-doublet model at the HL-LHC. Our meticulous parameter scan illuminates an intriguing mass range for $m_{h_{\rm f}}$, spanning $[1,10]{\;{\rm GeV}}$. This mass range owes its viability to substantial parameter points, largely due to the inherent challenges of detecting the soft decay products of $h_{\rm f}$ at contemporary high-energy colliders. Given that this light $h_{\rm f}$ ensures $Br(h_{\rm f}\to\gamma\gamma)\simeq 1$, $Br(H^\pm \to h_{\rm f} W^\pm)\simeq 1$, and $M_{H^\pm}\lesssim 330{\;{\rm GeV}}$, we propose a golden discovery channel: $pp\to h_{\rm f}H^\pm\to \gamma\gamma\gamma\gamma \,l^\pm\nu$, where $l^\pm$ includes $e^\pm$ and $\mu^\pm$. However, a significant obstacle arises as the two photons from the $h_{\rm f}$ decay mostly merge into a single jet due to their proximity within $\Delta R<0.4$. This results in a final state characterized by two jets, rather than four isolated photons, thus intensifying the QCD backgrounds. To tackle this, we devise a strategy within \textsc{Delphes} to identify jets with two leading subparticles as photons, termed diphoton jets. Our thorough detector-level simulations across 18 benchmark points predominantly show signal significances exceeding the $5\sigma$ threshold at an integrated luminosity of $3{\;{\rm ab}^{-1}}$. Furthermore, our approach facilitates accurate mass reconstructions for both $m_{h_{\rm f}}$ and $M_{H^\pm}$. Notably, in the intricate scenarios with heavy charged Higgs bosons, our application of machine learning techniques provides a significant boost in significance., Comment: 36 pages with 12 figures

Jet substructure observable basis is a systematic and powerful tool for analyzing the internal energy distribution of constituent particles within a jet. In this work, we propose a novel method to insert neural networks into jet substructure basis as a simple yet efficient interpretable IRC-safe deep learning framework to discover discriminative jet observables. The Energy Flow Polynomial (EFP) could be computed with a certain summation order, resulting in a reorganized form which exhibits hierarchical IRC-safety. Thus inserting non-linear functions after the separate summation could significantly extend the scope of IRC-safe jet substructure observables, where neural networks can come into play as an important role. Based on the structure of the simplest class of EFPs which corresponds to path graphs, we propose the Hierarchical Energy Flow Networks and the Local Hierarchical Energy Flow Networks. These two architectures exhibit remarkable discrimination performance on the top tagging dataset and quark-gluon dataset compared to other benchmark algorithms even only utilizing the kinematic information of constituent particles.

Jet tagging is a crucial classification task in high energy physics. Recently the performance of jet tagging has been significantly improved by the application of deep learning techniques. In this work, we propose Particle Dual Attention Transformer for jet tagging, a new transformer architecture which captures both global information and local information simultaneously. Based on the point cloud representation, we introduce the Channel Attention module to the point cloud transformer and incorporates both the pairwise particle interactions and the pairwise jet feature interactions in the attention mechanism. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the P-DAT architecture in classic top tagging and quark-gluon discrimination tasks, achieving competitive performance compared to other benchmark strategies., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables

We comprehensively study the potential for discovering lepton flavor violation (LFV) phenomena associated with the $Z$ and Higgs bosons at the LHeC and FCC-he. Our meticulous investigation reveals the remarkable suitability of electron-proton colliders for probing these rare new physics signals. This is due to the distinct advantages they offer, including negligible pileups, minimal QCD backgrounds, electron-beam polarization $P_e$, and the capability of distinguishing the charged-current from neutral-current processes. In our pursuit of LFV of the $Z$ boson, we employ an innovative indirect probe, utilizing the $t$-channel mediation of the $Z$ boson in the process $p e^- \to j \tau^-$. For LFV in the Higgs sector, we scrutinize direct observations of the on-shell decays of $H\to e^+\tau^-$ and $H\to \mu^\pm\tau^\mp$ through the charged-current production of $H$. Focusing on $H\to e^+\tau^-$ proves highly efficient due to the absence of positron-related backgrounds in the charged-current modes at electron-proton colliders. Through a dedicated signal-to-background analysis with the boosted decision tree algorithm, we demonstrate that the LHeC with the total integrated luminosity of $1{\,{\rm ab}^{-1}}$ can put significantly lower $2\sigma$ bounds than the HL-LHC with $3{\,{\rm ab}^{-1}}$. Specifically, we find ${\rm{Br}}(Z\to e\tau)< 2.2 \times 10^{-7}$, ${\rm{Br}}(H\to e\tau) <1.7 \times 10^{-4} $, and ${\rm{Br}}(H\to \mu\tau) < 1.0 \times 10^{-4}$. Furthermore, our study uncovers the exceptional precision of the FCC-he in measuring the LFV signatures of the $Z$ and Higgs bosons, which indicates the potential for future discoveries in this captivating field., Comment: Extensive updates including the BDT analysis for the LFV Z, the distinction between the LFV Z and LHV Z', and the signal significance when the number of backgrounds approach 0

Most of the experimental searches of the non-Standard Model Higgs boson(s) at the LHC rely on the QCD induced production modes. However, in some beyond Standard Model frameworks, the additional Higgs bosons can have fermiophobic behaviour. The type I two Higgs doublet model considered here is a perfect example where all the additional Higgs bosons exhibit fermiophobic nature over a large region of parameter space. Thus the electroweak productions of these new Higgs bosons are more dominant over the QCD induced processes. In scenarios with light pseuodoscalar ($A$) which is bound to decay dominantly to $b\bar{b}$, even being fermiophobic, the $4b + W$ state via $p p \to H^\pm A \to (AW)A \to 4b + W$ and followed by the leptonic decay of $W$ boson can surpass the QCD initiated $4b$ final state. However, the signal gets overshadowed by large $t\bar{t}+$jets background and hence constructing a suitable discriminator based on the signal hypothesis and signal topology is necessary. We devised a $\chi^2$ variable as the most suitable signal-background discrimintor to reduce the background by a sizable amount and showed the discovery reach ( $>3\sigma$) of the electroweak initiated $4b+ \ell + {\rlap{\,/}{E}_T}$ final state at the LHC., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, version accepted for publication in JHEP

The light fermiophobic Higgs boson $h_{\rm f}$ in the type-I two-Higgs-doublet model can evade the current search programs at the LHC since its production through the quark-antiquark annihilation and gluon fusion is not feasible. The particle can be more elusive if the model retains stability up to the Planck scale because the efficient discovery channels are missing from the existing search chart. Through the comprehensive scanning, we show that all the viable parameter points with the Planck cutoff scale require $ m_{h_{\rm f}} \in[80,\, 120]{\;{\rm GeV}}$ and $M_{A/H^\pm} \in [90,\,150]{\;{\rm GeV}}$. Since $h_{\rm f}h_{\rm f}\to \gamma\gamma W^+ W^-$ and $H^\pm \to \tau^\pm \nu/h_{\rm f}W^\pm$ are dominant in this case, two final states are more efficient to probe $h_{\rm f}$ than the conventional search mode of $4\gamma+W^\pm/Z$. One is $\tau^\pm\nu \gamma\gamma$ from $pp \to H^\pm(\to\tau^\pm\nu) h_{\rm f}(\to \gamma\gamma)$ and the other is $\ell^\pm \ell^\pm \gamma\gamma {\rlap{\,/}{E}_T} X$ ($\ell^\pm=e^\pm,\mu^\pm$) from $pp \to H^\pm(\to h_{\rm f}W^\pm) h_{\rm f} \to \gamma\gamma W^+ W^-W^\pm $, $pp \to H^\pm(\to h_{\rm f} W^\pm) A(\to h_{\rm f} Z) \to \gamma\gamma W^+ W^- W^\pm Z $, and $pp \to H^+(\to h_{\rm f} W^+)H^-(\to h_{\rm f} W^-)\to \gamma\gamma W^+ W^- W^+ W^-$. The inclusive $\ell^\pm \ell^\pm \gamma\gamma {\rlap{\,/}{E}_T} X$ consists of a same-sign dilepton, two prompt photons, and missing transverse energy. We perform the signal-background analysis at the detector level. With the total integrated luminosity of $300\;{\rm fb}^{-1}$ and the 5\% background uncertainty, two proposed channels at the 14 TeV LHC yield signal significances above five in the entire viable parameter space of the fermiophobic type-I with a high cutoff scale., Comment: Final version to appear in JHEP

Higgsino in supersymmetric standard models can play the role of dark matter particle. In conjunction with the naturalness criterion, the higgsino mass parameter is expected to be around the electroweak scale. In this work, we explore the potential of probing the nearly degenerate light higgsinos with machine learning at the LHC. By analyzing jet images and other jet substructure information, we use the Convolutional Neural Network(CNN) to enhance the signal significance. We find that our deep learning jet image method can improve the previous result based on the conventional cut-flow by about a factor of two at the High-Luminosity LHC., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, discussions and references added, version accepted by PRD

The scenario of multi-sector SUSY breaking predicts pseudo-goldstinos which are not absorbed by the gravitino and their mass can be as low as ${{\cal O} (0.1)}$ GeV. Since the interactions of pseudo-goldstinos are not so weak as gravitino, a produced higgsino can decay to a pseudo-goldstino plus a Higgs boson insider the detector at the LHC, and thus the higgsino pair production can lead to the signal of Higgs pair plus missing energy. For the scenario of natural SUSY which requires rather light higgsinos, such events may sizably outnumber the Higgs pair events predicted by the SM and be accessible at the HL-LHC (14 TeV with a luminosity of 3~$\rm{ab}^{-1}$). In this work we examine the observability of such Higgs pair plus missing energy from the decay of light higgsinos produced at the HL-LHC. Considering three channels of the Higgs-pair decay ($bbWW^*$, $bb\gamma\gamma$, $bbbb$), our detailed Monte Carlo simulations for the signal and backgrounds show that the best channel is $bbbb+\textrm{E\!\!\!\! \!\slash}_T$, whose statistical significance can reach $2\sigma$ level for a light higgsino allowed by current experiments. This is over the SM Higgs pair result which is about $1.8\sigma$., Comment: 1+19 pages, 7 figs, 4 tables, analysis result added, references added and a typo removed

Axion-like particles (ALPs) appear in various new physics models with spontaneous global symmetry breaking. When the ALP mass is in the range of MeV to GeV, the cosmology and astrophysics bounds are so far quite weak. In this work, we investigate such light ALPs through the ALP-strahlung production processes $pp \to W^\pm a, Z a$ with the sequential decay $a \to \gamma\gamma$ at the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb$^{-1}$ (HL-LHC). Building on the concept of jet image which uses calorimeter towers as the pixels of the image and measures a jet as an image, we investigate the potential of machine learning techniques based on convolutional neural network (CNN) to identify the highly boosted ALPs which decay to a pair of highly collimated photons. With the CNN tagging algorithm, we demonstrate that our approach can extend current LHC sensitivity and probe the ALP mass range from 0.3~GeV to 5~GeV. The obtained bounds are stronger than the existing limits on the ALP-photon coupling., Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables

In light of very recent E989 experimental result, we investigate the possibility that heavy sparticles explain the muon g-2 anomaly. We focus on the bino-smuon loop in an effective SUSY scenario, where a light gravitino plays the role of dark matter and other sparticles are heavy. Due to the enhancement of left-right mixing of smuons by heavy higgsinos, the contribution of bino-smuon loop can sizably increase the prediction of muon g-2 to the experimental value. Under collider and vacuum stability constraints, we find that TeV scale bino and smuon can still account for the new muon g-2 anomaly. The implications for LHC phenomenology are also discussed., Comment: 10 pages,1 figure;Published in:Nucl.Phys.B 969(2021)115481,add some discussions and references, matches published version

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model (SM). When ALP mass lies in the range of MeV to GeV, the cosmology and astrophysics will be largely irrelevant. In this work, we investigate such light ALPs through the ALP-strahlung process $pp \to V a (\to \gamma\gamma)$ at the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb$^{-1}$ (HL-LHC). With the photon-jet algorithm, we demonstrate that our approach can probe the mass range of ALPs, which is inaccessible to previous LHC experiments. The obtained result can surpass the existing limits on ALP-photon coupling in the ALP mass range from 0.3 GeV to 10 GeV., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, version accepted by PRD

Vector-like top partner plays a central role in many new physics models which attempt to address the hierarchy problem. The top partner is conventionally assumed to decay to a quark and a SM boson. However, it is also possible that the top partner decays to a non-SM scalar and a top quark. Such an exotic decay channel can be the main decay channel of top partner, and thus provides new windows to search for top partner at the LHC. In this paper, with classical machine learning method Boosted Decision Tree (BDT), we perform a model independent study of the discovery potential of this new signature at the LHC. In order to suppress the main QCD background, we consider subdominant but clean decay channel $a\to \gamma\gamma$. For completeness, the single production process and pair production process of top partner are all taken into account. We find that, for both single and pair production, the future High-Luminosity LHC can exclude the top partner mass up to TeV scale through channel $T\to t a$ ($a\to \gamma\gamma$), even if $BR(a\to \gamma\gamma)$ is as small as $\mathcal{O}$(0.1\%). Besides, our result shows that single production can overmatch pair production at 14 TeV LHC, provided that top partner is heavier than $800\sim 900$ GeV., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures. Benchmark scenario is modified. More references are added

Measuring the triple Higgs coupling is a crucial task in the LHC and future collider experiments. We apply the Message Passing Neural Network (MPNN) to the study of the non-resonant Higgs pair production process $pp \to hh$ in the final state with $2b + 2\ell + E_{\rm T}^{\rm miss}$ at the LHC. Although the MPNN can improve the signal significance, it is still challenging to observe such a process at the LHC. We find that a $2\sigma$ upper bound (including a 10\% systematic uncertainty) on the production cross section of the Higgs pair is 3.7 times the predicted SM cross section at the LHC with the luminosity of 3000 fb$^{-1}$, which will limit the triple Higgs coupling to the range of $[-3,11.5]$., Comment: 23 pages, discussions added, version accepted by PRD