Top Partner Probes of Extended Higgs Sectors

TL;DR

This paper proposes a search strategy for detecting top partner decays into extended Higgs sector scalars, focusing on charged Higgs bosons decaying to third-generation quarks, which could be a promising discovery channel.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search approach for top partner decays into extended Higgs scalars, including charged and neutral types, enhancing detection prospects.

Findings

Developed a search strategy for top partner decays to charged Higgs and bottom quark.

Outlined methods to extend the search to neutral scalars decaying to bottom quark pairs.

Highlighted the potential of top partner decays as a discovery mode for extended Higgs sectors.

Abstract

Natural theories of the weak scale often include fermionic partners of the top quark. If the electroweak symmetry breaking sector contains scalars beyond a single Higgs doublet, then top partners can have sizable branching ratios to these extended Higgs sector states. In fact, top partner decays may provide the most promising discovery mode for such scalars, especially given the large backgrounds to direct and associated production. In this paper, we present a search strategy for top partner decays to a charged Higgs boson and a bottom quark, focusing on the case where the charged Higgs dominantly decays to third-generation quarks to yield a multi-b final state. We also discuss ways to extend this search to exotic neutral scalars decaying to bottom quark pairs.