Search for a light charged Higgs boson in t→H±b decays, with H±→cs, in pp collisions at s=13TeV with the ATLAS detector


Zwalinski L., Zou W., Zormpa O., Zorbas T., Zoch K., Zoccoli A., ...More

European Physical Journal C, vol.85, no.2, 2025 (SCI-Expanded) identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 85 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2025
  • Doi Number: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13715-4
  • Journal Name: European Physical Journal C
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Aerospace Database, Chemical Abstracts Core, Communication Abstracts, INSPEC, zbMATH, Directory of Open Access Journals, Nature Index
  • Istanbul University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

A search for a light charged Higgs boson produced in decays of the top quark, t→H±b with H±→cs, is presented. This search targets the production of top-quark pairs tt¯→WbH±b, with W→ℓν (ℓ=e,μ), resulting in a lepton-plus-jets final state characterised by an isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The search exploits b-quark and c-quark identification techniques as well as multivariate methods to suppress the dominant tt¯ background. The data analysed correspond to 140fb-1 of pp collisions at s=13TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC between 2015 and 2018. Observed (expected) 95% confidence-level upper limits on the branching fraction B(t→H±b), assuming B(t→Wb)+B(t→H±(→cs)b)=1.0, are set between 0.066% (0.077%) and 3.6% (2.3%) for a charged Higgs boson with a mass between 60 and 168 GeV.