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An update of the constraints on the phenomenological MSSM from the new LHC Higgs results

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A. Arbey, M. Battaglia, A. Djouadi, F. Mahmoudi

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Submitted 16 Nov 2012 · 32 references

Pith's verdict: A competent, time-stamped update of the authors' own pMSSM scan; the headline exclusion of H-as-126 is solid, but the quoted survival percentages rest on an unquantified production-rate systematic.

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arXiv ID1211.4004 (version 2)
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CitationA. Arbey, A. Djouadi, F. Mahmoudi, M. Battaglia. "An update of the constraints on the phenomenological MSSM from the new LHC Higgs results." arXiv:1211.4004 (2012). https://pith.science/paper/I2JRLNON
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The paper

The paper claims

Applying updated LHC Higgs, LHCb and XENON100 constraints to 2x10^8 pMSSM points pushes the model into the decoupling regime and excludes the heavier H boson as the observed 126 GeV state.

The reading

Supersymmetry, in its minimal form, predicts five Higgs bosons rather than one. After 2012 the LHC had measured the mass and the production-and-decay rates of a new boson near 126 GeV, so the natural question was which of those five it is, and what that implies for the rest of the supersymmetric spectrum. This paper answers that by brute force: it generates 200 million random points in the 19-dimensional parameter space of the phenomenological MSSM, keeps the ones that survive earlier LEP, LHC, flavour and dark-matter constraints, and then scores each surviving point against the measured Higgs mass and the measured rates in the photon-photon, ZZ, WW, b-quark and tau-lepton channels. Points whose predicted rates sit far from the measurements are discarded; the rest are grouped into 68% and 90% compatibility bands and plotted in the parameter planes theorists care about, such as the heavy Higgs mass versus tan beta, or the lighter stop mass versus its mixing. Three new ingredients drive the update: the LHCb observation of the rare B_s to mu+ mu- decay, a new world average for b to s gamma, and the XENON100 limit on spin-independent dark matter scattering. The headline outcomes are that the data prefer heavy, decoupled H and A bosons above roughly 400 GeV, that a light stau or a light sbottom with large mixing can still shift the photon-photon rate, and that the alternative reading in which the 126 GeV particle is the heavier H boson is now excluded by the CMS H/A to tau tau search.
Extended reading notes

Core claim

The paper's load-bearing assertion is that the updated Higgs, flavour and dark-matter data, applied to a 2.0x10^8-point flat pMSSM scan, sharpen the allowed parameter space and exclude the scenario in which the observed 126 GeV particle is the heavier CP-even H boson. Concretely: 'the data prefer the decoupling regime with M_A >~ 400 GeV for all tan beta values', and 'we observe no point in this scenario to comply with the flavour, dark matter and 90% C.L. for the Higgs data'. If correct, the low-M_A, moderate-tan beta window in which H mimics a Standard-Model Higgs is closed, and the surviving pMSSM points are pushed toward heavy, decoupled heavy-Higgs states.

Load-bearing premise

The asymmetric chi-squared treatment of the b-bbar and tau-tau channels in Section 2: 'we add the contribution to the total chi2 only when the respective mu value is outside the +/-1.5 sigma interval from the measured central value'. This discards the information carried by those two measurements whenever a point agrees with them, and it is a hand-chosen threshold with no stated justification. It is load-bearing because the paper itself attributes the shift from its earlier results to this channel: 'sbottom mixing plays a major role in this analysis as it affects strongly the h to b-bbar decay rate ... this is the reason why the behaviour is rather different from what was observed with the summer data'. A symmetric or profile-likelihood treatment would move the favoured sbottom and stau regions.

Original abstract

Updated results on the search of Higgs bosons at the LHC with up to 17/fb of data have just been presented by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. New constraints are provided by the LHCb and XENON experiments with the observation of the rare decay B_s -> mu+mu- and new limits on dark matter direct detection. In this paper, we update and extend the results on the implications of these data on the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (pMSSM) by using high statistics, flat scans of its 19 parameters. The new LHC data on bb and tau tau decays of the lightest Higgs state and the new CMS limits from the tau tau searches for the heavier Higgs states set stronger constraints on the pMSSM parameter space.

The compiled record

The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.

Compiled by classifier-1.13-20260917 via OpenRouter, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 3,759 input tokens, $0.0002 reported.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.03 · states limitation 0.07 · human participants 0.02 · controlled comparison 0.04 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.21 · compares with prior results 0.32 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v2. Results and the main claim are underlined; .

Updated results on the search of Higgs bosons at the LHC with up to 17/fb of data have just been presented by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. New constraints are provided by the LHCb and XENON experiments with the observation of the rare decay B_s -> mu+mu- and new limits on dark matter direct detection. In this paper, we update and extend the results on the implications of these data on the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (pMSSM) by using high statistics, flat scans of its 19 parameters. The new LHC data on bb and tau tau decays of the lightest Higgs state and the new CMS limits from the tau tau searches for the heavier Higgs states set stronger constraints on the pMSSM parameter space.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#sentencerolethe authors' own workstates the main conclusionstrength
s0 Updated results on the search of Higgs bosons at the LHC with up to 17/fb of data have just been presented by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. background 1.00 0.05 0.03 asserted 1.00
s1 New constraints are provided by the LHCb and XENON experiments with the observation of the rare decay B_s -> mu+mu- and new limits on dark matter direct detection. background 0.93 0.10 0.06 asserted 1.00
s2 In this paper, we update and extend the results on the implications of these data on the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (pMSSM) by using high statistics, flat scans of its 19 parameters. contribution 0.90 0.89 0.10 asserted 0.97
s3 The new LHC data on bb and tau tau decays of the lightest Higgs state and the new CMS limits from the tau tau searches for the heavier Higgs states set stronger constraints on the pMSSM parameter space. result 0.90 0.62 0.57 asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: simulation study 0.82 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.95.

What was examined, and what was not

sources read
  • arXiv listing abstract v2
not examined
  • full text
  • figures and tables
  • references and citing sentences
  • relations to other papers
levels run
  • P abstract
not run
  • S sections
  • T body sentences
  • C citations
  • R cross-paper relations

Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

Figures
Figure 1. The b ¯b (top), V V =WW +ZZ (centre) and τ τ (bottom) signal strengths vs. that for γγ from the LHC and Tevatron results compared to the values for the accepted pMSSM points. Then, we move to consider the compatibility of the h mass and signal rates predicted for the accepted pMSSM points with the updated LHC mea￾surements. The results on the signal strengths from the current results for the individual experiments are compared to the distributions obtained for accepted pMSSM points in
Figure 2. µ values in the h → γγ channel for associate VBF and VH production vs. gg → h. The dots in dark grey show the accepted pMSSM points and those in light green the points which agree at 90% C.L. with the constraints of
Figure 3. For small values of sin αeff the variations of Rbb from the ∆b term are enhanced, increasing or decreasing its value depending on the sign of µ
Figure 4. The neutralino relic density log10(Ωχh 2 ) as a function of Mχ 0 1 (left) and BR(h → χ 0 1χ 0 1 ) (right) for the accepted set of pMSSM points (black dots), those with BR(h → χ 0 1χ 0 1 ) ≥ 15% (green dots) and those compatible at 90% C.L. with the Higgs data (light green dots). The horizontal lines show the constraint imposed on Ωχh 2 and the vertical lines on the panel on the right the 68% and 95% C.L. constraints on the Higgs invisible decay branching fraction obtained by [26]. obtained in [26]. As can be seen only a small area in the region 30 <∼ Mχ 0 1 <∼ 60 GeV
Figure 5. Distributions of the pMSSM points in various pMSSM planes. The black dots show the accepted pMSSM points with Mh > 114 GeV, those in dark (light) green the points compatible with the mass and rate constraints of
Figure 6. Distributions of the pMSSM points in the [Mτ˜1 , Xτ ] plane. The black dots show the accepted pMSSM points with Mh > 114 GeV, those in dark green the points compatible with the Dγγ constraint of
Figure 7. The parameter space [MA,tan β] with points for the heavier H boson to be observed with a mass in the interval 123–129 GeV (light grey points) and after flavour and dark matter relic density 10−4 < Ωh 2 < 0.155 constraints (black points). None of these points have rates compatible with those of
Figure 8. Decays of the H boson into SUSY particles. The left panel shows the allowed region for the H → τ˜1τ˜1,2 decay. The black points indicate the area in which the decay is kinematically possible, the dark green those with branching ratios larger than 15% and the light green the subset fulfilling also the constraints of
Figure 9. χ-p scattering cross section as a function of the χ 0 1 mass. The black dots represent valid pMSSM points, the dark grey dots the subset of points compatible at 90% C.L. with the LHC Higgs results and the light grey dots compatible at 68% C.L. The region enclosed by the grey continuous line contains 99.5% of the points compatible at 90% C.L. with the LHC Higgs results. The dashed line represents the 95% C.L. upper limit contour set by the XENON100 experiment with 225 live days of data. We compare the new XENON limit with the predicted spin–independent χ–p cross sections as a…

Figures reproduced from arXiv:1211.4004 by the authors.

References
How later papers used it

49 later papers cite it

Evidence: substantial. 34 of the citing papers share no author with it, and 11 of those carry a confident label from Pith's citation classifier.

Pith read 24 of the 62 citing sentences, choosing only those whose citation markers point at this paper alone, and wrote the paraphrases from them. The summary, the counts, the evidence level, the links and the quotes come from code; the summary counts the papers listed below. A later paper is listed under a label when Pith's citation classifier gives one of its sentences that label at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), Pith's reading finds that the citing paper itself did it, and a second check confirms the paraphrase against the sentence. This section lists uses only. It does not list criticism or disagreement, so their absence here says nothing about how the paper has been received. Papers that share an author with this one are listed apart, under "By the same authors". A quote is the citing authors' own sentence, shown when their paper's licence is CC BY, CC BY-SA or CC0. JSON

Uses its method or tool 1 of 2 papers with this label · 1 by the same authors

By the same authors

Uses its data or values 1 of 5 papers with this label
Cites it as support 2 of 5 papers with this label

  • Cited this paper as evidence that the possibility of the second CP-even Higgs being the SM-like Higgs is extremely constrained if not excluded in the MSSM by experimental data.

    Searching for a lighter Higgs: parametrisation and sample tests (2013) · 0.95 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting

  • Cited this paper as evidence that scenarios with light scalar tops satisfy the experimental constraints from LHC searches and can contribute to a successful prediction of the lightest Higgs boson mass in the MSSM.

    Squark-pair annihilation into quarks at next-to-leading order (2019) · 1.00 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting

How the literature uses it

49 arXiv papers cite this in 62 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 41 sentences without a confident label

Contests it 1 paper
  • This provides a new constraint on the dark matter scenario of Ref. [ref] , and in particular disfavors their benchmark models.

    Constraints on a Very Light Sbottom · Discussion and Conclusions · contest 0.80

Uses its method or tool 2 papers
Uses its data or values 5 papers
  • Current LHC bounds at $1 σ$, which we took from [ref] , are $R_ZZ = 0.93 ±0.28$, $R_γγ = 1.66 ±0.33$.

    Avoiding Death by Vacuum · LHC data and panic vacua · 1.00

  • Their experimental bounds at the $1 σ$ level are [ref] $R_ZZ = 0.93 ±0.28$, $R_γγ = 1.66 ±0.33$, summing over all production mechanisms.

    Evading death by vacuum · Panic vacua and LHC results · 0.99

  • This range includes the 95% C.L. errors from the ATLAS and CMS data [ref] as well as a 1.5 GeV theoretical uncertainty [ref] .

    Testing Times for Supersymmetry: Looking Under the Lamp Post · Introduction · 0.93

Compares with it 2 papers
  • In particular, the $M_A$ bound derived from the new data is about 100 GeV lower compared to that obtained on the first preliminary results on part of the 8 TeV data released at the end of 2012, without the CMS re-analysis of the $γγ$ channel [ref] .

    Supersymmetric Heavy Higgs Bosons at the LHC · Indirect Constraints from the light Higgs signal · 0.95

  • Our results are in good agreement with the existing studies [ref] .

    Dark matter and Higgs bosons in the MSSM · Scanning results · 0.97

Cites it as support 3 papers
Cites it as background 8 papers
  • Several studies have already been performed in the context of different SUSY models, including the MSSM [ref] (also the constrained version [ref] ), NMSSM [ref] , (B-L)SSM [ref] .

    The 125 GeV Higgs signal at the LHC in the CP Violating MSSM · Introduction · 0.87

  • The collider, flavour and DM constraints on the general pMSSM were explored in several publications [ref] and the impact of stop searches was also considered [ref] .

    Light stop in the MSSM after LHC Run 1 · Introduction · 0.95

  • Most of the papers on these “p$n$MSSM” models analyzed the impact of constraints from direct LHC SUSY searches [ref] , from the Higgs discovery [ref] , from $b$-physics [ref] , and from direct and indirect detection of DM [ref] .

    Dark matter and collider signatures of the MSSM · Introduction · 0.95

What it cites · 5 sentences without a confident label

Uses the method or tool of 1 paper
Uses data or values from 2 papers
  • This is exemplified in Figure [ref] where $log_10 (Ω_χ h^2)$ is shown as a function of $M_χ_1^0$ for the accepted set of pMSSM points and for those which have BR$(h→χ_1^0 χ_1^0) ≥15%$, close to the 68% C.L. upper limit obtained in [ref] .

    Coupling spans of the Higgs-like boson · SUSY corrections to the Higgs rates · 0.92

  • For the $b→sγ$ decay branching ratio, the new world average value of $(3.43 ±0.22)×10^-4$ [ref] is now closer to the SM prediction leading to more severe constraints.

    Averages of b-hadron, c-hadron, and tau-lepton properties as of early 2012 · Analysis and Results · 0.98

Cites as background 1 paper
  • We consider now the contributions of SUSY particles to the $γγ$ branching fraction and, eventually, to the $gg→h$ amplitude [ref] .

    MSSM: Cornered and Correlated · SUSY corrections to the Higgs rates · 0.90

Discussion

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