Physics beyond the Standard Model can manifest itself as both new light states and heavy degrees of freedom. In this paper, we assume that the former comprise only a sterile neutrino, $N$. Therefore, the most agnostic description of the new physics is given by an effective field theory built upon the Standard Model fields as well as $N$. We show that Higgs phenomenology provides a sensitive and potentially crucial tool to constrain effective gauge interactions of sterile neutrinos, not yet probed by current experiments. In parallel, this motivates a range of new Higgs decay channels with clean signatures as candidates for the next LHC runs, including $h\to \gamma +p_T^{\mathrm{miss}}$ and $h\to \gamma \gamma +p_T^{\mathrm{miss}}$.

• Received 20 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.115019

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Published by the American Physical Society