Abstract

This paper explores how invisible Higgs boson decays in vector boson fusion (VBF) can be used to place constraints on Higgs-portal vector dark matter. The exploration uses published limits from ATLAS and CMS on the invisible branching ratio of the Higgs boson, BR inv (H → ) , being the starting point. These limits are first converted into bounds on the maximum invisible decay width of the Higgs boson, using à 4.1MeV SM = , and then into limits on the Higgs-portal coupling in the mass region / 2 m m V h < , where the decay h VV → is kinematically allowed. The collider-based limits are further translated into spin-independent dark matter–nucleon scattering limits,σ SI , and compared with direct detection results from LZ, XENONnT, and PandaX-4T. The results show that collider limits from invisible Higgs decays are important, especially near the threshold region / 2 m m V h ≈ , while direct detection experiments are stronger over most of the allowed mass range. This shows that collider searches and direct detection experiments work well together in testing Higgs-portal dark matter models.

Keywords

invisible higgs decays, vector boson fusion, higgs-portal dark matter, vector dark matter, spin-independent scattering