New discovery modes for a light charged Higgs boson at the LHC

2021/06/30 by A. Arhrib, Abdesslam Arhrib, Rachid Benbrik +8
Physics and Astronomy · #Boson #Higgs boson #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Large Hadron Collider #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Physics beyond the Standard Model #Production (economics) #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quark #Standard Model (mathematical formulation) #Top quark #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep10(2021)073

published in Journal of High Energy Physics 2021(10) (Springer Nature) · 17 pages, 5 figures; a few typos were corrected and two references were added

openalex publication_date 2021/10/01 · arxiv created 2021/12/06 · arxiv updated 2021/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

A bstract At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations have been searching for light charged Higgs bosons via top (anti)quark production and decays channels, like pp → t t <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>t</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> with one top (anti)quark decaying into a charged Higgs boson and a b (anti)quark, when the decay is kinematically open (i.e., when m_H^± <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> </mml:msup> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ≲ m t ). In this paper, we propose new searches at the LHC involving light charged Higgs bosons via their pair production channels like pp → H ± h/A and pp → H + H − in the 2-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) Type-I and -X scenarios. By focusing on the case where the heavy H state plays the role of the Standard Model (SM)-like Higgs boson with a mass near 125 GeV, we study the aforementioned Higgs boson pair production channels and investigate their bosonic decays, such as H ± → W ± h and/or H ± → W ± A . We demonstrate that for a light charged Higgs boson state, with m_H^± <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> </mml:msup> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ≲ m t , at the LHC, such di-Higgs production and decay channels can give rise to signatures with event rates much larger than those emerging from pp → t t <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>t</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> → t b <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> H − + c.c. We specifically study h/A → b b <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> and τ + τ − decays. We, therefore, claim that the discussed combination of new production and decay modes can result in an alternative discovery channel for charged Higgs bosons lighter than the top (anti)quark at the LHC within the above two 2HDM Types. Finally, in order to motivate experimentalists in ATLAS and CMS to search for such signatures, we propose 16 Benchmark Points (BPs) which are compatible with both theoretical and experimental constraints.

Citations

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