Top quark polarization as a probe of charged Higgs bosons

Abstract

We study the production and decay of a heavy charged Higgs boson in the $bg\to tH^-$ and $H^-\to b\bar t$ processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We show that the chiral structure of the $H^-t\bar b$ vertex entering both stages is sensitive to the underlying Higgs mechanism of Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) and we specifically demonstrate that one could distinguish between two popular realizations of a 2-Higgs Double Model (2HDM) embedding a new $H^\pm$ state, i.e., those with Type-I and -Y Yukawa couplings. The chiral structure of such a vertex, which is different in the two cases, in turn triggers a particular spin state of the top quark which is then transmitted to its decay products. Hence, both inclusive rates and exclusive observables can be used to extract the presence of such a charged Higgs boson state in LHC data.