Probing the Electroweak Phase Transition with Exotic Higgs Decays
Abstract
An essential goal of the Higgs physics program at the LHC and beyond is to explore the nature of the
Higgs potential and shed light on the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. An important class
of models alter the thermal history of electroweak symmetry breaking from the predictions of the Standard
Model (SM). This paper reviews the existence of a region of parameter space where a strong first-order
electroweak phase transition is compatible with exotic decays of the SM-like Higgs boson. A dedicated
search for exotic Higgs decays can actively explore this framework at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),
while future exotic Higgs decay searches at the high-luminosity LHC and future Higgs factories will be
vital to conclusively probe the scenario.

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