Production of a composite Higgs boson

We present a model-independent prescription for computing the gluon fusion production rate of a composite Higgs boson, which arises as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson, using effective Lagrangians. The calculation incorporates three different effects due to the composite nature of the Higgs, some of which were neglected previously. We apply the prescription to models with and without the collective breaking mechanism. In sharp contrast with the case of a fundamental Higgs scalar, the rate only depends on the decay constant f and is not sensitive to masses of new particles. After including electroweak constraints, there is a substantial reduction in the rate, in the range of 10%-30% or greater.