Physical parameters and basis transformations in the two-Higgs-doublet model

A direct connection between physical parameters of general two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM) potentials after electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) and the parameters that define the potentials before EWSB is established. These physical parameters, such as the mass matrix of the neutral Higgs bosons, have well-defined transformation properties under basis transformations transposed to the fields after EWSB. The relations are also explicitly written in a basis covariant form. Violation of these relations may indicate models beyond 2HDMs. In certain cases the whole potential can be defined in terms of the physical parameters. The distinction between basis transformations and reparametrizations is pointed out. Some physical implications are discussed. © 2008 The American Physical Society.

Search for W H associated production in 5.3 fb(-1) of p(p)over-bar collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron

We present a search for associated production of Higgs and W bosons in pp̄ collisions at a center of mass energy of s=1.96 TeV in 5.3 fb-1 of integrated luminosity recorded by the D0 experiment. Multivariate analysis techniques are applied to events containing one lepton, an imbalance in transverse energy, and one or two b-tagged jets to discriminate a potential WH signal from Standard Model backgrounds. We observe good agreement between data and expected backgrounds, and set an upper limit of 4.5 (at 95% confidence level and for mH=115 GeV) on the ratio of the WH cross section multiplied by the branching fraction of H→bb̄ to its Standard Model prediction, which is consistent with an expected limit of 4.8. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel cross section in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

A measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel production cross section in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC is presented. Two different and complementary approaches have been followed. The first approach exploits the distributions of the pseudorapidity of the recoil jet and reconstructed top-quark mass using background estimates determined from control samples in data. The second approach is based on multivariate analysis techniques that probe the compatibility of the candidate events with the signal. Data have been collected for the muon and electron final states, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.17 and 1.56 fb-1, respectively. The single-top-quark production cross section in the t-channel is measured to be 67.2±6.1 pb, in agreement with the approximate next-to-next-to-leading- order standard model prediction. Using the standard model electroweak couplings, the CKM matrix element |V tb| is measured to be 1.020 ± 0.046 (meas.) ± 0.017 (theor.). © 2012 CERN for the benefit of the CMS collaboration.

Forward-backward asymmetry of Drell-Yan lepton pairs in pp collisions at s=7TeV

A measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry (AFB) of Drell-Yan lepton pairs in pp collisions at s=7TeV is presented. The data sample, collected with the CMS detector, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5fb-1. The asymmetry is measured as a function of dilepton mass and rapidity in the dielectron and dimuon channels. Combined results from the two channels are presented, and are compared with the standard model predictions. The AFB measurement in the dimuon channel and the combination of the two channels are the first such results obtained at a hadron collider. The measured asymmetries are consistent with the standard model predictions. © 2012 CERN.

Search for supersymmetry in events with photons and low missing transverse energy in pp collisions at √s=7TeV

Many models of new physics, including versions of supersymmetry (SUSY), predict production of events with low missing transverse energy, electroweak gauge bosons, and many energetic final-state particles. The stealth SUSY model yields this signature while conserving R-parity by means of a new hidden sector in which SUSY is approximately conserved. The results of a general search for new physics, with no requirement on missing transverse energy, in events with two photons and four or more hadronic jets are reported. The study is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at s=7TeV corresponding to 4.96fb-1 of integrated luminosity collected with the CMS detector in 2011. Based on good agreement between the data and the standard model expectation, the data are used to determine model-independent cross-section limits and a limit on the squark mass in the framework of stealth SUSY. With this first study of its kind, squark masses less than 1430 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level. © 2012 CERN.

Multiple higgs and vector boson production beyond the standard model

If the electroweak symmetry breaking is originated from a strongly coupled sector, as for instance in composite Higgs models, the Higgs boson couplings can deviate from their Standard Model values. In such cases, at sufficiently high energies there could occur an onset of multiple Higgs boson and longitudinally polarised electroweak gauge boson (V L ) production. We study the sensitivity to anomalous Higgs couplings in inelastic processes with 3 and 4 particles (either Higgs bosons or V L 's) in the final state. We show that, due to the more severe cancellations in the corresponding amplitudes as compared to the usual 2 → 2 processes, large enhancements with respect to the Standard Model can arise even for small modifications of the Higgs couplings. In particular, we find that triple Higgs production provides the best multiparticle channel to look for these deviations. We briefly explore the consequences of multiparticle production at the LHC. © 2013 SISSA.

Post-sphaleron baryogenesis and an upper limit on the neutron-antineutron oscillation time

A recently proposed scenario for baryogenesis, called post-sphaleron baryogenesis (PSB), is discussed within a class of quark-lepton unified framework based on the gauge symmetry SU(2)L×SU(2) R×SU(4)c realized in the multi-TeV scale. The baryon asymmetry of the Universe in this model is produced below the electroweak phase transition temperature after the sphalerons have decoupled from the Hubble expansion. These models embed naturally the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses and predict color-sextet scalar particles in the TeV range which may be accessible to the LHC experiments. A necessary consequence of this scenario is the baryon-number-violating ΔB=2 process of neutron-antineutron (n-n̄) oscillations. In this paper we show that the constraints of PSB, when combined with the neutrino oscillation data and restrictions from flavor changing neutral currents mediated by the colored scalars, imply an upper limit on the n-n̄ oscillation time of 5×1010 sec regardless of the quark-lepton unification scale. If this scale is relatively low, in the (200-250) TeV range, τn-n̄ is predicted to be less than 1010 sec, which is accessible to the next generation of proposed experiments. © 2013 American Physical Society.

A Bayesian view of the Higgs sector with higher dimensional operators

We investigate the possibilities of New Physics affecting the Standard Model (SM) Higgs sector. An effective Lagrangian with dimension-six operators is used to capture the effect of New Physics. We carry out a global Bayesian inference analysis, considering the recent LHC data set including all available correlations, as well as results from Tevatron. Trilinear gauge boson couplings and electroweak precision observables are also taken into account. The case of weak bosons tensorial couplings is closely examined and NLO QCD corrections are taken into account in the deviations we predict. We consider two scenarios, one where the coefficients of all the dimension-six operators are essentially unconstrained, and one where a certain subset is loop suppressed. In both scenarios, we find that large deviations from some of the SM Higgs couplings can still be present, assuming New Physics arising at 3 TeV. In particular, we find that a significantly reduced coupling of the Higgs to the top quark is possible and slightly favored by searches on Higgs production in association with top quark pairs. The total width of the Higgs boson is only weakly constrained and can vary between 0.7 and 2.7 times the Standard Model value within 95% Bayesian credible interval (BCI). We also observe sizeable effects induced by New Physics contributions to tensorial couplings. In particular, the Higgs boson decay width into Zγ can be enhanced by up to a factor 12 within 95% BCI. © 2013 SISSA.

The 125 GeV boson: A composite scalar?

Assuming that the 125 GeV particle observed at the LHC is a composite scalar and responsible for the electroweak gauge symmetry breaking, we consider the possibility that the bound state is generated by a non-Abelian gauge theory with dynamically generated gauge boson masses and a specific chiral symmetry breaking dynamics motivated by confinement. The scalar mass is computed with the use of the Bethe-Salpeter equation and its normalization condition as a function of the SU(N) group and the respective fermionic representation. If the fermions that form the composite state are in the fundamental representation of the SU(N) group, we can generate such a light boson only for one specific number of fermions for each group. We address the uncertainties underlying this result, when considering the strong dynamics in isolation. © 2013 American Physical Society.

Áxions, májorons e neutrinos em extensões do modelo padrão

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Efeitos de bósons vetoriais neutros nos aceleradores: LHC e ILC

Pós-graduação em Física - IFT

Forward-backward asymmetry of Drell-Yan lepton pairs in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for anomalous production of highly boosted Z bosons decaying to mu(+)mu(-) in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Anomalous gauge couplings from composite Higgs and warped extra dimensions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Stringent limits on top-quark compositeness from t(t)over-bar production at the Tevatron and the LHC

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)