Particle-level transformers for 95 GeV Higgs boson searches at future e + e − Higgs factories
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Motivated by several mild excesses around 95 GeV, we investigate the prospects for a light scalar S produced via Higgsstrahlung, e + e − → Z ( μ + μ − ) S , at future e + e − Higgs factories. We take the CEPC as a benchmark, with a center-of-mass energy of s = 240 GeV and an integrated luminosity of L = 20 ab − 1 . We focus on the decay modes S → τ + τ − and S → b b ¯ . To maximize sensitivity, we employ the particle-level transformer networks particle transformer (ParT) and its more-interactive variant MIParT, which exploit the features of all reconstructed objects and their correlations. For a representative signal benchmark, this approach improves the expected statistical precision on the signal strength by factors of 2.3 in the τ + τ − channel and 1.4 in the b b ¯ channel compared to a cut-based analysis. Within the flipped next-to-two-Higgs-doublet model (N2HDM-F), the CEPC can measure the signal strength with a statistical precision down to 1.0% in the τ + τ − channel and 0.69% in the b b ¯ channel using MIParT. It can achieve a 5 σ discovery for μ τ τ Z S > 1.6 × 10 − 2 or μ b b Z S > 5.0 × 10 − 3 , and reach 1% precision for μ τ τ Z S > 0.93 or μ b b Z S > 0.14 . These gains are expected to qualitatively carry over to other future lepton colliders such as FCC-ee and the ILC. Our results demonstrate the potential of particle-level machine-learning techniques to strengthen light Higgs searches at future e +
DOI: 10.1103/13h1-zdmz
Authors: Yabo Dong, Manqi Ruan, Kun Wang, Haijun Yang, Jingya Zhu
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4417001577