# Charged Higgs bosons in the NMSSM under current LHC constraints

## TL;DR

This study explores the parameter space of the NMSSM, revealing possible light charged Higgs bosons and their decay modes under current LHC constraints, highlighting challenges for detection at existing collider energies.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of charged Higgs boson masses and decay channels in the NMSSM considering recent experimental constraints, especially the LHC data.

## Key findings

- Charged Higgs bosons can be as light as 350 GeV.
- Lightest CP-even Higgs $h_1$ can be as light as 48 GeV.
- Exotic decay modes $H^ o W h_1$ and $H^ o W a_1$ can have significant branching ratios.

## Abstract

Charged Higgs boson is a crucial prediction of new physics beyond the SM. In this work, we perform a comprehensive scan over the parameter space of NMSSM considering various experimental constraints including the direct search limits from the 13 TeV LHC, and consider the scenario that the next-to-lightest CP-even Higgs boson is SM-like. We find that the masses of charged Higgs bosons can be as light as 350 GeV, the lightest CP-even Higgs boson $h_1$ is predominantly singlet and can be as light as 48 GeV, and the lightest CP-odd Higgs boson $a_1$ is also singlet-dominated and can be as light as 82 GeV. The charged Higgs bosons mainly decay to $t\bar{b}$ or $\bar{t} b$, but the branching ratio of the exotic decays $H^\pm\to W^\pm h_1$ and $H^\pm\to W^\pm a_1$ can maximally reach to 20\% and 11\%, respectively, which can be used to distinguish the NMSSM from MSSM. Such a heavy charged Higgs boson is unaccessible at the 13 TeV LHC with a luminosity of 36.1 $\rm fb^{-1}$ and its detection needs higher energy and/or higher luminosity.