Signature of a light charged Higgs boson from top quark pairs at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential signature of a light charged Higgs boson produced in top quark pairs at the LHC, reinterpreting existing data to set new constraints on its properties within type-I two-Higgs-Doublet models.

Contribution

It provides the first direct LHC search limits on the branching ratio of a three-body decay involving a light charged Higgs boson, improving constraints on related models.

Findings

Established new upper limits on the decay branching ratio involving a light charged Higgs.

Reinterpreted ATLAS data to find better agreement with the light charged Higgs hypothesis.

Set the strongest direct constraints on the parameter space of certain two-Higgs-Doublet models.

Abstract

The charged Higgs boson is a smoking gun of extensions of the standard model with multiple Higgs-doublets, and has been searched for at various collider experiments. In this paper, we study signature of a light charged Higgs boson produced by top quark pairs at the LHC, with subsequent three-body decays into a W boson and a pair of bottom quarks. Cross sections on final states of two W bosons plus four bottom quarks have been measured by the ATLAS collaboration at the LHC 13 TeV. We reinterpret the experimental data under the scenario of a light charged Higgs boson, and find improved agreements. We obtain the first limit from LHC direct searches on the total branching ratio of the three-body decay, $Br(t\rightarrow H^+b)\times Br(H^+\rightarrow W^+b\bar b)$, and the strongest direct constraints on the parameter space of a class of type-I two-Higgs-Doublet models.