Non-resonant Collider Signatures of a Singlet-Driven Electroweak Phase Transition

Abstract

We analyze the collider signatures of the real singlet extension of the Standard Model in regions consistent with a strong first-order electroweak phase transition and a singlet-like scalar heavier than the Standard Model-like Higgs. A definitive correlation exists between the strength of the phase transition and the trilinear coupling of the Higgs to two singlet-like scalars, and hence between the phase transition and non-resonant scalar pair production involving the singlet at colliders. We study the prospects for observing these processes at the LHC and a future 100 TeV $pp$ collider, focusing particularly on double singlet production. We also discuss correlations between the strength of the electroweak phase transition and other observables at hadron and future lepton colliders. Searches for non-resonant singlet-like scalar pair production at 100 TeV would provide a sensitive probe of the electroweak phase transition in this model, complementing resonant di-Higgs searches and precision measurements. Our study illustrates a strategy for systematically exploring the phenomenologically viable parameter space of this model, which we hope will be useful for future work.