Charged Higgs bosons in the Next-to MSSM (NMSSM)

TL;DR

This paper investigates the decay modes and production channels of charged Higgs bosons in the NMSSM, highlighting the potential for the $H^\u00b0\to W^b^a_1$ decay to dominate and proposing promising detection strategies at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces the dominance of the $H^\u00b0\to W^b^a_1$ decay mode and explores its implications for discovering light charged Higgs bosons in the NMSSM at the LHC.

Findings

$H^\u00b0\to W^b^a_1$ decay can surpass traditional channels.

$pp\to H^b^a_1$ production is a promising discovery channel.

Distinct signatures can be identified at the LHC using reconstruction methods.

Abstract

The charged Higgs boson decays $H^\pm\to W^\pm A_1$ and $H^\pm\to W^\pm h_i$ are studied in the framework of the next-to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). It is found that the decay rate for $H^\pm\to W^\pm A_1$ can exceed the rates for the $\tau^\pm\nu$ and $tb$ channels both below and above the top-bottom threshold. The dominance of $H^\pm\to W^\pm A_1$ is most readily achieved when $A_1$ has a large doublet component and small mass. We also study the production process $pp\to H^\pm A_1$ at the LHC followed by the decay $H^\pm\to W^\pm A_1$ which leads to the signature $W^\pm A_1 A_1$. We suggest that $p p\to H^\pm A_1$ is a promising discovery channel for a light charged Higgs boson in the NMSSM with small or moderate $\tan\beta$ and dominant decay mode $H^\pm \to W^\pm A_1$. This $W^\pm A_1 A_1$ signature can also arise from the Higgsstrahlung process $pp\to W^\pm h_1$ followed by the decay $h_1\to A_1 A_1$. It is shown that there exist regions of parameter space where these processes can have comparable cross sections and we suggest that their respective signals can be distinguished at the LHC by using appropriate reconstruction methods.