Detection prospects of light pseudoscalars in the NMSSM.

Nils-Erik Bomark, University of Warsaw

Within the MSSM, the heavy stops required to meet the experimental value of the Higgs mass, poses tension with naturalness, the main reason to believe in supersymmetry at LHC scales. This is alleviated in the NMSSM, where especially the possibility of a light singlet-like scalar can easily push the Higgs mass up to the measure value.

The presence of a singlet-like scalar and pseudoscalar gives rise to LHC phenomenology potentially rather different from the MSSM as these particles can be very light without coming in conflict with observations. In this presentation I will discuss the discovery prospects of these light pseudoscalars in the NMSSM. As direct production of such singlet-dominated particles is very difficult, the main focus will be on channels where heavier scalars decay to pairs of pseudoscalars or pseusodscalars and Z bosons. I will demonstrate that the LHC should be capable of probing a large part of the NMSSM parameter space through these channels.