The minimal phantom sector of the standard model: Higgs phenomenology and Dirac leptogenesis

We propose the minimal, lepton-number conserving, SU(3)c x SU(2)L x U(1)Y gauge-singlet, or phantom, extension of the Standard Model. The extension is natural in the sense that all couplings are of O(1) or forbidden due to a phantom sector global U(1)D symmetry, and basically imitates the standard Majorana see-saw mechanism. Spontaneous breaking of the U(1)D symmetry triggers consistent electroweak gauge symmetry breaking only if it occurs at a scale compatible with small Dirac neutrino masses and baryogenesis through Dirac leptogenesis. Dirac leptogenesis proceeds through the usual out-of-equilibrium decay scenario, leading to left and right-handed neutrino asymmetries that do not fully equilibrate after they are produced. The model contains two physical Higgs bosons and a massless Goldstone boson. The existence of the Goldstone boson suppresses the Higgs to bb branching ratio and instead the Higgs bosons will mainly decay to invisible Goldstone and/or to visible vector boson pairs. In a representative scenario, we estimate that with 30 fb-1 integrated luminosity, the LHC could discover this invisibly decaying Higgs, with mass ∼ 120 GeV. At the same time a significantly heavier, partner Higgs boson with mass ∼ 210 GeV could be found through its vector boson decays. Electroweak constraints as well as astrophysical and cosmological implications are analysed and discussed