{
  "id": "2202.03522",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2022-02-07T21:17:20.000Z",
  "updated": "2022-02-07T21:17:20.000Z",
  "title": "Slight excess at 130 GeV in search for a charged Higgs boson decaying to a charm quark and a bottom quark at the Large Hadron Collider",
  "authors": [
    "A. G. Akeroyd",
    "Stefano Moretti",
    "Muyuan Song"
  ],
  "comment": "30 pages, 11 figures",
  "categories": [
    "hep-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "Searches for a charged Higgs boson ($H^\\pm$) decaying to a charm quark and a bottom quark ($H^\\pm \\to cb$) have been carried out at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the decay of top quarks ($t\\to H^\\pm b$). In a recent search by the ATLAS collaboration (with all Run II data, 139 fb$^{-1}$) a local excess of around $3\\sigma$ has been observed, which is best fitted by a charged Higgs boson with a mass ($m_{H^\\pm}$) of around 130 GeV and a product of branching ratios (BRs) given by BR$(t\\to H^\\pm b)\\times{\\rm BR}(H^\\pm\\to cb)=0.16\\%\\pm 0.06\\%$. In the context of Two-Higgs-Doublet Models (2HDM) with independent Yukawa couplings for $H^\\pm$ we present the parameter space for which this excess (assuming it to be genuine) can be accommodated, taking into account the limits from LHC searches for $H^\\pm\\to cs$ and $H^\\pm\\to \\tau\\nu$ at $m_{H^\\pm}$=130 GeV and the constraint from $b\\to s\\gamma$. It is then shown that such an excess cannot be explained in 2HDMs with natural flavour conservation, but can be accommodated in the flipped Three-Higgs-Doublet Model (3HDM) and in the aligned 2HDM (A2HDM). Upcoming searches with 139 fb$^{-1}$ in the channels $H^\\pm\\to cb$ (CMS), $H^\\pm \\to cs$ (ATLAS/CMS) and $H^\\pm \\to \\tau\\nu$ (ATLAS/CMS) will determine if the excess is the first sign of an $H^\\pm$ with $m_{H^\\pm}=130$ GeV.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2022-02-07T21:17:20.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "large hadron collider",
      "charged higgs boson decaying",
      "charm quark",
      "slight excess",
      "independent yukawa couplings"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 30,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}