Light scalars in the Weinberg 3HDM potential with spontaneous CP violation

Abstract

The Z2×Z2-symmetric 3HDM potential, sometimes called Weinberg's 3HDM potential, can accommodate both explicit and spontaneous CP violation as well as natural flavour conservation and is hence relevant for studies of CP violation coming from a realistic extended Higgs sector. The model has an interesting regime, controlled by a single parameter, where it acquires an approximate global U(1)×U(1) symmetry which causes CP violating effects to be small and two pseudo-Goldstone bosons to be present in the scalar spectrum. From parameter space scans, we find that, in a realistic implementation featuring an SM-like Higgs boson, this model predominantly leads to the existence of light additional Higgs bosons with a mass lower than the SM-like Higgs boson.