LHC Phenomenology of the Type II Seesaw Mechanism: Observability of Neutral Scalars in the Nondegenerate Case

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This is a sequel to our previous work on LHC phenomenology of the type II seesaw model in the nondegenerate case. In this work, we further study the pair and associated production of the neutral scalars H⁰/A⁰. We restrict ourselves to the so-called negative scenario characterized by the mass order Mₕ±±>Mₕ±>Mₕ₀/ₐ₀, in which the H⁰/A⁰ production receives significant enhancement from cascade decays of the charged scalars H±±, H±. We consider three important signal channels---bbγγ, bbτ+τ-, bbℓ+ℓ-Eₜ---and perform detailed simulations. We find that at the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3000/fb, a 5σmass reach of 151, 150, and 180 GeV, respectively, is possible in the three channels from the pure Drell-Yan H⁰A⁰ production, while the cascade-decay-enhanced H⁰/A⁰ production can push the mass limit further to 164, 177, and 200 GeV. The neutral scalars in the negative scenario are thus accessible at LHC run II.