Searching for a charged Higgs boson with both $H^{\pm}W^{\mp}Z$ and $H^{\pm}tb$ couplings at the LHC

Abstract

In certain new physics scenarios, a singly charged Higgs boson can couple to both fermions and $W^\pm Z$ at tree level. We develop new strategies beyond current experimental searches using $pp\to jjH^\pm$, $H^\pm \to tb $ at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). With the effective $H^\pm W^\mp Z$ and $H^\pm tb$ couplings we perform a model-independent analysis at the collision energy $\sqrt{s}=13$~TeV with the integrated luminosity of $3~\text{ab}^{-1}$. We derive the discovery prospects and exclusion limits for the charged Higgs boson in the mass range from 200~GeV to 1~TeV. With $|F_{WZ}|,|A_t|\sim 0.5-1.0$ and $300~\text{GeV}\lesssim m_{H^\pm}\lesssim 400~\text{GeV}$, we point out that a discovery significance of $5\sigma$ can be achieved. The constraints and projected sensitivities are also discussed in a realistic model, i.e., the modified Georgi-Machacek model without custodial symmetry. Our proposed search would provide direct evidence for a charged Higgs boson $H^\pm$ that couples to $W^\pm Z$ and $tb$, which can have better sensitivity to the couplings of $H^\pm W^\mp Z$ and $H^\pm tb$ than current searches.