LHC phenomenology of a two-Higgs-doublet neutrino mass model

Abstract

We study the LHC search prospects for a model in which the neutrinos obtain Dirac masses from couplings to a second Higgs doublet with tiny vacuum expectation value. The model contains a charged Higgs boson that decays to l nu with branching fractions controlled by the neutrino masses and mixing angles as measured in neutrino oscillation experiments. The most promising signal is electroweak production of H+ H- pairs with decays to l l' pTmiss, where l l' = e+ e-, mu+ mu-, and e+- mu-+. We find that a cut on the kinematic variable M_{T2} eliminates most of the t t and W-pair background. Depending on the neutrino mass spectrum and mixing angles, a 100 (300) GeV charged Higgs could be discovered at the LHC with as little as 8 (24) fb-1 of integrated luminosity at 14 TeV pp center-of-mass energy.