Higgs Boson Decay into Hadronic Jets

The remarkable agreement of electroweak data with standard model (SM) predictions motivates the study of extensions of the SM in which the Higgs boson is light and couples in a standard way to the weak gauge bosons. Postulated new light particles should have small couplings to the gauge bosons. Within this context it is natural to assume that the branching fractions of the light SM-like Higgs boson mimic those in the standard model. This assumption may be unwarranted, however, if there are non-standard light particles coupled weakly to the gauge bosons but strongly to the Higgs field. In particular, the Higgs boson may effectively decay into hadronic jets, possibly without important bottom or charm flavor content. As an example, we present a simple extension of the SM, in which the predominant decay of the Higgs boson occurs into a pair of light bottom squarks that, in turn, manifest themselves as hadronic jets. Discovery of the Higgs boson remains possible at an electron-positron linear collider, but prospects at hadron colliders are diminished substantially.