Phenomenology of charged scalars in the CP-Violating Inert-Doublet Model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production and decay of charged scalars in a CP-violating inert-doublet model, highlighting potential collider signatures like displaced vertices at the LHC, and explores its implications for dark matter and CP violation.

Contribution

It introduces a CP-violating extension of the Inert Doublet Model with new scalars, analyzing their collider phenomenology and potential experimental signatures.

Findings

Charged scalars decay into dark matter and SM particles with distinctive signatures.

Single production of charged scalars is feasible at hadron colliders like the LHC.

Potential experimental hallmark includes displaced vertex events.

Abstract

We study the production and decay of charged scalars, eta^\pm, in the context of a CP-Violating Inert-Doublet Model. The model is an extended version of the Inert Doublet Model with an extra Higgs doublet and provides new sources of CP violation and a dark matter candidate. As compared with the 2HDM, the particle spectrum contains two additional neutral scalars and a charged pair. These particles are subject to a Z_2 symmetry, but can be pair-produced in hadronic collisions. If a charged scalar is included in the pair, it decays to the stable dark-matter candidate (i.e., the lightest neutral inert scalar) plus Standard Model matter that consists of either two jets or a single lepton (from a virtual or real W or Z) plus missing transverse energy. Since the single production channel is available only at hadronic colliders, we consider the Large Hadron Collider environment, hence we discuss experimental perspectives and possible hallmarks of the model, such as events with a displaced vertex.