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

Abstract

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations have been searching for light charged Higgs bosons via top (anti)quark productionand decays channels, like pp → tt¯ with one top (anti)quark decaying into a charged Higgsboson and a b (anti)quark, when the decay is kinematically open (i.e., when mH±<∼ mt). Inthis paper, we propose new searches at the LHC involving light charged Higgs bosons viatheir pair production channels like pp → H±h/A and pp → H+H− in the 2-Higgs DoubletModel (2HDM) Type-I and -X scenarios. By focusing on the case where the heavy H stateplays 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 theirbosonic decays, such as H± → W±h and/or H± → W±A. We demonstrate that for alight charged Higgs boson state, with mH±<∼ mt, at the LHC, such di-Higgs productionand decay channels can give rise to signatures with event rates much larger than thoseemerging from pp → tt¯ → t¯bH− + c.c. We specifically study h/A → b¯b and τ+τ− decays. We, therefore, claim that the discussed combination of new production and decaymodes can result in an alternative discovery channel for charged Higgs bosons lighter thanthe top (anti)quark at the LHC within the above two 2HDM Types. Finally, in order tomotivate experimentalists in ATLAS and CMS to search for such signatures, we propose16 Benchmark Points (BPs) which are compatible with both theoretical and experimentalconstraints.

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ORCID for S. Moretti: orcid.org/0000-0002-8601-7246

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