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  • Are there hidden scalars in LHC Higgs results?
    Publication . Arhrib, A.; Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Santos, Rui
    The Higgs boson recently discovered at the Large Hadron Collider has shown to have couplings to the remaining particles well within what is predicted by the Standard Model. The search for other new heavy scalar states has so far revealed to be fruitless, imposing constraints on the existence of new scalar particles. However, it is still possible that any existing heavy scalars would preferentially decay to final states involving the light Higgs boson thus evading the current LHC bounds on heavy scalar states. Moreover, decays of the heavy scalars could increase the number of light Higgs bosons being produced. Since the number of light Higgs bosons decaying to Standard Model particles is within the predicted range, this could mean that part of the light Higgs bosons could have their origin in heavy scalar decays. This situation would occur if the light Higgs couplings to Standard Model particles were reduced by a concomitant amount. Using a very simple extension of the SM - the two-Higgs doublet model we show that in fact we could already be observing the effect of the heavy scalar states even if all results related to the Higgs are in excellent agreement with the Standard Model predictions.
  • One-loop contributions to neutral minima in the inert doublet model
    Publication . Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Swiezewska, Bogumila
    The vacuum structure of the inert doublet model is analysed at the one-loop level using the effective potential formalism, to verify the validity of tree-level predictions for the properties of the global minimum. An inert minimum (with massive fermions) and an inert-like minimum (with massless fermions) can coexist at tree level. But the one-loop analysis reveals that the allowed parameter space for the coexistence of more than one minimum is larger than the tree-level expected one. It is also shown that for some choices of parameters, the global minimum found at the one-loop level may be inert (or inert-like), contrary to what the tree-level analysis indicates.
  • Electroweak vacuum lifetime in two Higgs doublet models
    Publication . Branchina, V.; Contino, F.; Ferreira, Pedro Miguel
    We study the stability of neutral electroweak vacua in two Higgs doublet models, and calculate the lifetime of these states when the parameters are such that they are false vacua. As the two Higgs doublet model is invariant under a sign change of both doublets, degenerate true vacua exist. It is shown that this degeneracy, despite the fact that each of these minima locally describes the same physics, can immensely affect their lifetime. We apply these calculations to the parameter space of the models which is allowed by recent LHC searches, and infer combinations of parameters which should be excluded on grounds of a tunneling time inferior to the age of the universe.
  • Stability of neutral minima against charge breaking in the Higgs triplet model
    Publication . Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; GONÇALVES, B. L.
    We analyse the possibility of charge breaking minima developing in the Higgs triplet model, and under what conditions they are deeper than charge-preserving ones. Analytical expressions relating the depth of minima of different types are deduced. A global symmetry of the model leads to increased stability for charge-preserving vacua. However, if that symmetry is broken by a soft term, deeper charge-breaking minima may occur more easily. We identify the vev configurations most likely to produce charge breaking minima.
  • A three Higgs doublet model with symmetry-suppressed flavour changing neutral currents
    Publication . Das, Dipankar; Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Morais, António P.; Padilla-Gay, Ian; Pasechnik, Roman; Rodrigues, J. Pedro
    We construct a three-Higgs doublet model with a flavour non-universal U(1) x DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL Z(2) symmetry. That symmetry induces suppressed flavour-changing interactions mediated by neutral scalars. New scalars with masses below the TeV scale can still successfully negotiate the constraints arising from flavour data. Such a model can thus encourage direct searches for extra Higgs bosons in the future collider experiments, and includes a non-trivial flavour structure.
  • Vacuum structure of the Z(2) symmetric Georgi-Machacek model
    Publication . Azevedo, Duarte; Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Logan, Heather E.; Santos, Rui
    We discuss the vacuum structure of a version of the Georgi-Machecek model with an exact Z(2) symmetry acting on the triplet fields. Besides the usual custodial-symmetric model, with rho = 1 at tree-level, a model with a dark matter candidate is also viable. The other phases of the model lead to electric charge breaking, a wrong pattern of electroweak symmetry breaking or to rho not equal 1 at tree-level. We derive conditions to have an absolute minimum in each of the two viable phases, the custodial and the dark matter phases.
  • One-loop charge-breaking minima in the two-Higgs doublet model
    Publication . Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Morrison, L. A.; Profumo, S.
    We analyze the vacuum structure of the one-loop effective potential in the two Higgs doublet model. We find that electroweak-breaking vacua can coexist with charge breaking ones, contradicting a theorem valid at tree-level. We perform a numerical analysis of the model and supply explicit parameter values for which charge-breaking vacua can be the global minimum of the theory, and deeper than charge-preserving ones.
  • The dark phases of the N2HDM
    Publication . Engeln, Isabell; Ferreira, Pedro Miguel; Muehlleitner, Milada Margarete; Santos, Rui; Wittbrodt, Jonas
    We discuss the dark phases of the Next-to-2-Higgs Doublet model. The model is an extension of the Standard Model with an extra doublet and an extra singlet that has four distinct CP-conserving phases, three of which provide dark matter candidates. We discuss in detail the vacuum structure of the different phases and the issue of stability at tree-level of each phase. Taking into account the most relevant experimental and theoretical constraints, we found that there are combinations of measurements at the Large Hadron Collider that could single out a specific phase. The measurement of h(125) -> gamma gamma together with the discovery of a new scalar with specific rates to tau (+)tau (-) or gamma gamma could exclude some phases and point to a specific phase.