Current Higgs boson searches in various channels at the LHC point to an excess at around 124–126 GeV due to a possibly standard-model-like Higgs boson. If one examines more closely the channels ($\gamma \gamma$, $W{W}^{*}$, and $Z{Z}^{*}$) that have excess, this “Higgs boson” may be the Randall-Sundrum radion $\varphi$. Because of the trace anomaly, the radion has stronger couplings to the photon and gluon pairs. Thus, it will enhance the production rates into $gg$ and $\gamma \gamma$, while those for $W{W}^{*}$, $Z{Z}^{*}$, and $b\overline{b}$ are reduced relative to their standard model values. We show that it can match well with the data from CMS for $m_{\varphi }=124\mathrm{GeV}$, and the required scale ${\Lambda }_{\varphi }\sim ⟨\varphi ⟩$ is about 0.68 TeV.

• Received 28 December 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.141602