Charming the Higgs

Understand

We show that current Higgs data permit a significantly enhanced Higgs coupling to charm pairs, comparable to the Higgs to bottom pairs coupling in the Standard Model, without resorting to additional new physics sources in Higgs production.

• With a mild level of the latter current data even allow for the Higgs to charm pairs to be the dominant decay channel.
• An immediate consequence of such a large charm coupling is a significant reduction of the Higgs signal strengths into the known final states as in particular into bottom pairs.
• This might reduce the visible vector-boson associated Higgs production rate to a level that could compromise the prospects of ever observing it.