Charged-Higgs Collider Signals with or without Flavor

TL;DR

This paper explores how flavor physics influences charged-Higgs production at the LHC, highlighting potential signals that could reveal non-minimal flavor structures beyond minimal flavor violation assumptions.

Contribution

It evaluates the LHC discovery potential for charged Higgs bosons considering flavor physics constraints, emphasizing the impact of non-minimal flavor structures on production rates.

Findings

Flavor structures can significantly alter charged-Higgs production patterns.

Non-minimal flavor structures may lead to observable signals at the LHC.

Charged-Higgs searches can test flavor physics beyond rare meson decay experiments.

Abstract

A charged Higgs boson is a clear signal for an extended Higgs sector, as for example predicted by supersymmetry. Squark mixing can significantly change the pattern of charged-Higgs production and most notably circumvent the chiral suppression for single Higgs production. We evaluate the LHC discovery potential in the light of flavor physics, in the single-Higgs production channel and in association with a hard jet for small and moderate values of tan beta. Thoroughly examining current flavor constraints we find that non-minimal flavor structures can have a sizeable impact, but tend to predict moderate production rates. Nevertheless, charged-Higgs searches will probe flavor structures not accessible to rare kaon, bottom, or charm experiments, and can invalidate the assumption of minimal flavor violation.