Search for short- and long-lived axion-like particles in $$H\rightarrow a a \rightarrow 4\gamma $$ decays with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC

Abstract Presented is the search for anomalous Higgs boson decays into two axion-like particles (ALPs) using the full Run 2 data set of $$140\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$ 140 fb - 1 of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $$13\,\text {TeV}$$ 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment. The ALPs are assumed to decay into two photons, providing sensitivity to recently proposed models that could explain the $$(g-2)_\mu $$ ( g - 2 ) μ discrepancy. This analysis covers an ALP mass range from 100 to $$62\,\text {GeV}$$ 62 GeV and ALP-photon couplings in the range $$10^{-7}\,\text {TeV}^{-1} 10 - 7 TeV - 1 < C a γ γ / Λ < 1 TeV - 1 , and therefore includes signatures with significantly displaced vertices and highly collinear photons. No significant excess of events above the Standard Model background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are placed on the branching ratio of the Higgs boson to two ALPs in the four-photon final state, and are in the range of $$ 10^{-5}$$ 10 - 5 to $$3\times 10^{-2}$$ 3 × 10 - 2 , depending on the hypothesized ALP mass and ALP-photon coupling strength.

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