Production of light Higgs pairs in 2-Higgs doublet models via the Higgs-strahlung process at the LHC

Abstract

At the Large Hadron Collider, we prove the feasibility to detect pair production of the lightest CP -even Higgs boson h of a Type II 2-Higgs Doublet Model through the process $q{\overline q^{\left( ' \right)}} \to Vhh$ (Higgs-strahlung, V = W ^± ,Z), in presence of two $h \to b\overline b$ decays. We also show that, through such production and decay channels, one has direct access to the following Higgs self-couplings, thus enabling one to distinguish between a standard and the Supersymmetric version of the above model: λ _Hhh — which constrains the form of the Higgs potential — as well as λ _W ± _H ∓ _h and λ _{Z Ah} — which are required by gauge invariance. Unfortunately, such claims cannot be extended to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, where the extraction of the same signals is impossible.