Screening the Higgs portal

Understand

Light scalar fields that couple to matter through the Higgs portal mediate long range fifth forces.

• We show how the mixing of a light scalar with the Higgs field can lead to this fifth force being screened around macroscopic objects.
• This behaviour can only be seen by considering both scalar fields as dynamical, and is missed if the mixing between the Higgs field and the scalar field is not taken into account.
• We explain under which conditions the naive "integrating out" procedure fails, i.e.