Charged Higgs Probes of Dark Bosons at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper proposes using top quark decays at the LHC to search for light dark gauge bosons ($Z'$), which could explain astrophysical anomalies and muon g-2 deviations, by detecting collimated lepton-jet signatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to probe GeV-scale dark gauge bosons via top quark decay channels at the LHC, highlighting early detection potential.

Findings

Top quark decays can produce boosted dark gauge bosons.

Dark bosons decay into collimated leptons (lepton-jets).

Scenario detectable at early LHC Run 2.

Abstract

A very light (GeV scale) dark gauge boson ($Z'$) is a recently highlighted hypothetical particle that can address some astrophysical anomalies as well as the $3.6 \sigma$ deviation in the muon $g$-2 measurement. We suggest top quark decays as a venue to search for light dark force carriers at the LHC. Such $Z'$s can be easily boosted, and they can decay into highly collimated leptons (lepton-jet) with large branching ratio. We investigate a scenario where a top quark decays to $b W$ accompanied by one or multiple dark force carriers and find that such a scenario could be easily probed at the early stage of LHC Run 2.