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

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$$ \overline{t} $$ t ¯ 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 $$ {m}_{H^{\pm }} $$ m H ± ≲ mt). 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 $$ {m}_{H^{\pm }} $$ m H ± ≲ mt, 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$$ \overline{t} $$ t ¯ → t$$ \overline{b} $$ b ¯ H− + c.c. We specifically study h/A → b$$ \overline{b} $$ b ¯ 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.

Search for charged Higgs bosons produced in vector boson fusion processes and decaying into vector boson pairs in proton–proton collisions at $$\sqrt{s} = 13\,{\text {TeV}} $$

A search for charged Higgs bosons produced in vector boson fusion processes and decaying into vector bosons, using proton–proton collisions at $$\sqrt{s}=13\,{\text {TeV}} $$ s = 13 TeV at the LHC, is reported. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 137$$\,{\text {fb}}^{-1}$$ fb - 1 collected with the CMS detector. Events are selected by requiring two or three electrons or muons, moderate missing transverse momentum, and two jets with a large rapidity separation and a large dijet mass. No excess of events with respect to the standard model background predictions is observed. Model independent upper limits at 95% confidence level are reported on the product of the cross section and branching fraction for vector boson fusion production of charged Higgs bosons as a function of mass, from 200 to 3000$$\,{\text {GeV}}$$ GeV . The results are interpreted in the context of the Georgi–Machacek model.

CP violation from charged Higgs bosons in the three Higgs doublet model

We demonstrate a new type of cancellation of contributions to the electron and neutron electric dipole moments (EDMs) that occurs in three Higgs doublet models (3HDMs) when CP violation appears in the charged Higgs sector. The cancellation becomes exact when the two physical charged Higgs bosons in the model are degenerate in mass. Depending on the model parameters, degeneracies at the 10% level are however sufficient to evade current bounds on the electron and neutron EDMs. We demonstrate that viable parameter space remains with both charged Higgs bosons lighter than 500 GeV and large CP-violating phases while also satisfying theoretical constraints from perturbativity and experimental ones from $$ \overline{B} $$ B ¯ → Xsγ and direct searches.

The forgotten channels: charged Higgs boson decays to a W± and a non-SM-like Higgs boson

The presence of charged Higgs bosons is a generic prediction of multiplet extensions of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs sector. Focusing on the Two-Higgs-Doublet-Model (2HDM) with type I and lepton-specific Yukawa sectors, we discuss the charged Higgs boson collider phenomenology in the theoretically and experimentally viable parameter space. While almost all existing experimental searches at the LHC target the fermionic decays of charged Higgs bosons, we point out that the bosonic decay channels — especially the decay into a non-SM-like Higgs boson and a W boson — often dominate over the fermionic channels. Moreover, we revisit two genuine BSM effects on the properties of the discovered Higgs boson — the charged Higgs contribution to the diphoton rate and the Higgs decay to two light Higgs bosons — and their implication for the charged Higgs boson phenomenology. As main result of the present paper, we propose five two-dimensional benchmark scenarios with distinct phenomenological features in order to facilitate the design of dedicated LHC searches for charged Higgs bosons decaying into a W boson and a light, non-SM-like Higgs boson.

Search for doubly and singly charged Higgs bosons decaying into vector bosons in multi-lepton final states with the ATLAS detector using proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{\mathrm{s}} $$ = 13 TeV

A search for charged Higgs bosons decaying into W±W± or W±Z bosons is performed, involving experimental signatures with two leptons of the same charge, or three or four leptons with a variety of charge combinations, missing transverse momentum and jets. A data sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018 is used. The data correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. The search is guided by a type-II seesaw model that extends the scalar sector of the Standard Model with a scalar triplet, leading to a phenomenology that includes doubly and singly charged Higgs bosons. Two scenarios are explored, corresponding to the pair production of doubly charged H±± bosons, or the associated production of a doubly charged H±± boson and a singly charged H± boson. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed. H±± bosons are excluded at 95% confidence level up to 350 GeV and 230 GeV for the pair and associated production modes, respectively.

Search for charged Higgs bosons decaying into a top quark and a bottom quark at $$ \sqrt{\mathrm{s}} $$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for charged Higgs bosons decaying into a top quark and a bottom quark is presented. The data analysed correspond to 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s = 13 TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The production of a heavy charged Higgs boson in association with a top quark and a bottom quark, pp → tbH+ → tbtb, is explored in the H+ mass range from 200 to 2000 GeV using final states with jets and one electron or muon. Events are categorised according to the multiplicity of jets and b-tagged jets, and multivariate analysis techniques are used to discriminate between signal and background events. No significant excess above the background-only hypothesis is observed and exclusion limits are derived for the production cross-section times branching ratio of a charged Higgs boson as a function of its mass; they range from 3.6 pb at 200 GeV to 0.036 pb at 2000 GeV at 95% confidence level. The results are interpreted in the hMSSM and $$ {M}_h^{125} $$ M h 125 scenarios.

One-loop corrections to the two-body decays of the charged Higgs bosons in the real and complex NMSSM

We evaluate the full next-to-leading order supersymmetric (SUSY) electroweak and SUSY-QCD corrections to the on-shell two-body decays of the charged Higgs bosons in the framework of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (NMSSM) allowing also for CP violation. We furthermore provide the possibility to choose between different renormalization schemes in the electroweakino and the squark and slepton sectors. Our corrections are implemented in the code and thus complete the one-loop corrections of the charged Higgs boson decays which so far only included the state-of-the-art QCD corrections and the resummed SUSY-electroweak and SUSY-QCD corrections. We investigate the impact of the NLO corrections including the newly computed higher-order corrections for each decay mode in a wide range of the parameter space that is allowed by the theoretical and experimental constraints as well as the effect of CP violation and the dependence on the choice of the renormalization scheme. The new version of is made publicly available.

Probing heavy charged Higgs bosons through bottom flavored hadrons in the $$H^+\rightarrow \bar{b}t\rightarrow B+X$$ channel in 2HDM

Observing light or heavy charged Higgs bosons $$H^\pm $$ H ± , lighter or heavier than the top quark, would be instant evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. For this reason, in recent years searches for charged Higgs bosons have been in the center of attention of current colliders such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In spite of all efforts, no signal has been yet observed. Especially, the results of CMS and ATLAS experiments have excluded a large region in the MSSM $$m_{H^+}-\tan \beta $$ m H + - tan β parameter space for $$m_{H^+}=80{-}160$$ m H + = 80 - 160 GeV corresponding to the entire range of $$\tan \beta $$ tan β up to 60. Therefore, it seems that one should concentrate on probing heavy charged Higgs bosons ($$m_{H^\pm }>m_t$$ m H ± > m t ) so in this context each new probing channel is welcomed. In this work, we intend to present our proposed channel to search for heavy charged Higgses through the study of scaled-energy distribution of bottom-flavored mesons (B) inclusively produced in charged Higgs decay, i.e., $$H^+\rightarrow t\bar{b}\rightarrow B+X$$ H + → t b ¯ → B + X . Our study is carried out within the framework of the generic two Higgs doublet model (2HDM) using the massless scheme where the zero mass parton approximation is adopted for bottom quark.

Improving heavy dijet resonance searches using jet substructure at the LHC

The search for new physics at high energy accelerators has been at the crossroads with very little hint of signals suggesting otherwise. The challenges at a hadronic machine such as the LHC is compounded by the fact that final states are swamped with jets which one needs to understand and unravel. A positive step in this direction would be to separate the jets in terms of their gluonic and quark identities, much in a similar spirit of distinguishing heavy quark jets from light quark jets that has helped in improving searches for both neutral and charged Higgs bosons at the LHC. In this work, we utilise this information using the jet substructure techniques to comment on possible improvements in sensitivity as well as discrimination of new resonances in the all hadronic mode that would be crucial in pinning down new physics signals at HL-LHC, HE-LHC and any future 100 TeV hadron collider.