Global fits and the 95 GeV diphoton excesses in the Supersymmetric Georgi-Machacek Model

Abstract

Recently the ATLAS and CMS experiments have reported modest excesses in the diphoton channel at around 95 GeV.~A number of recent studies have examined whether these could be due to an extended electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) sector, including the well known Georgi-Machacek (GM) model.~Here we examine whether the excesses can be explained by a light exotic Higgs boson in the \emph{Supersymmetric} GM (SGM) model which has the same scalar spectrum as the conventional GM model, but with a more constrained Higgs potential and the presence of custodial Higgsino fermions.~We perform a global fit of the SGM model including all relevant production and decay channels, some of which have been neglected in previous studies, which severely constrain the parameter space.~We find that the SGM model can fit the data if the LHC diphoton excesses at 95\,GeV are due to the lightest custodial singlet Higgs boson which contributes $(5-7)\%$ to EWSB, but \emph{cannot} accommodate the LEP $b\bar{b}$ excess, in contrast to other recent studies of the GM model.~Since the SGM model has a highly constrained Higgs potential, the rest of the mass spectrum is sharply predicted, allowing for targeted searches at the LHC or future colliders.~We also compare the SGM model with the non-supersymmetric GM model and identify how they can be distinguished at the LHC or future colliders.