The Sensitivity of Higgs Factories to Composite Higgs Models via Precision Measurements

Abstract: We investigate the potential of precision Higgs factory measurements to discover signatures of a representative model of electroweak symmetry breaking in which the Higgs boson arises as a composite Nambu-Goldstone boson. In this model, as in other models of the ``Little Higgs" or Natural Composite Higgs type, the primary perturbations of the Standard Model come from effects of vectorlike top quark partners. We carry out an explicit calculation of the Higgs potential in this model. Applying phenomenological constraints, we are left with a 3-dimensional parameter space. We then present results from a complete scan of this parameter space. The region in which significant departures from the Standard Model predictions extends to models in which the lightest top quark partner has a mass above 3~TeV. Little Higgs models with such heavy top partners also predict significant deviations from the Standard Model in the top quark electroweak couplings, in particular, in the model studied here, in the $t_L$ coupling to the $Z$ boson.