Production of charged Higgs boson pairs in the $pp \to ppH^{+}H^{-}$ reaction at the LHC and FCC

TL;DR

This paper calculates differential cross sections for charged Higgs boson pair production in proton-proton collisions at LHC and FCC energies, comparing photon-photon fusion and diffractive mechanisms, and discusses measurement prospects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed predictions for $pp o ppH^{+}H^{-}$ production at LHC and FCC energies, including exact kinematics and absorption effects, and compares photon-photon and diffractive contributions.

Findings

Photon-photon fusion dominates the production cross section.

Cross sections are about 0.1 fb at LHC and 0.9 fb at FCC.

Absorption effects significantly dampen the cross section.

Abstract

We present differential cross sections for the $pp \to ppH^{+}H^{-}$ reaction via photon-photon fusion with exact kinematics. We show predictions for $\sqrt{s}$ = 14 TeV (LHC) and at the Future Circular Collider (FCC) for $\sqrt{s}$ = 100 TeV. The integrated cross section for $\sqrt{s}$ = 14~TeV (LHC) is about 0.1~fb and about 0.9~fb at the FCC for $\sqrt{s}$ = 100~TeV when assuming $m_{H^{\pm}} = 150$~GeV. We present distributions in diHiggs boson invariant mass. The results are compared with those obtained within equivalent-photon approximation. We discuss also first calculations of cross section for exclusive diffractive pQCD mechanism with estimated limits on the $g_{hH^{+}H^{-}}$ coupling constant within 2HDM based on the LHC experimental data. The diffractive contribution is much smaller than the $\gamma \gamma$ one. Absorption corrections are calculated differentially for various distributions. In general, they lead to a damping of the cross section. The damping depends on $M_{H^{+}H^{-}}$ invariant mass and on four-momentum transfers squared in the proton line. We discuss a possibility to measure the exclusive production of $H^{\pm}$ bosons.