Multi-photon production in the Type-I 2HDM

Abstract: This paper presents a study of a possible contribution to a Higgs boson signal in the $hh\to \gamma\gamma\gamma\gamma$ channel due to $H\to hh$ decays, in the framework of the CP-conserving 2-Higgs Doublet Model Type-I (2HDM-I), where the heavier of the two CP-even Higgs bosons defined herein, $H$, is the SM-like Higgs state observed with a mass of 125 GeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We perform a broad scan of the 2HDM-I parameter space, in presence of both up-to-date theoretical and experimental constraints, in order to extract the interesting regions yielding such a signal. Then, after validating our numerical framework against public experimental analyses carried out at the LHC, we proceed to assess its scope in constraining and/or extracting the $gg\to H\to hh\to \gamma\gamma\gamma\gamma$ signal in presence of a sophisticated Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. We find that, over a substantial region of the 2HDM-I parameter space presently un-accessible, the LHC will be able to establish such a potential signature in the next 2--3 years.