Search for Higgs-like bosons decaying into long-lived exotic particles

Area of Science:

• High Energy Physics
• Particle Physics
• Experimental Physics

Background:

• The Standard Model of particle physics allows for new phenomena beyond its predictions.
• Searches for new particles, such as long-lived massive particles, are crucial for extending our understanding of fundamental physics.
• Higgs-like bosons are of particular interest due to their potential role in new physics scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To search for massive long-lived particles (LLPs) within a specific mass and lifetime range.
• To investigate the pair production of LLPs from the decay of a Higgs-like boson.
• To set limits on the production cross-section of these hypothetical particles.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb detector.
• Utilizing a dataset corresponding to 0.62 fb⁻¹ of integrated luminosity.
• Applying selection criteria to identify potential massive long-lived particles and Higgs-like boson decays.

Main Results:

• No significant excess of events above the expected background was observed.
• Exclusion limits were placed on the production cross-section for massive long-lived particles.
• Limits were derived as a function of the LLP mass, lifetime, and the Higgs-like boson mass.

Conclusions:

• The search did not yield evidence for the existence of massive long-lived particles in the studied parameter space.
• The results constrain theoretical models predicting such particles and their production mechanisms.
• This study contributes to the ongoing exploration of physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider.