Flavor violating signatures of lighter and heavier Higgs bosons within the two Higgs doublet model type III at the LHeC

• Published in: Physical review. D 2016-09, Vol.94 (5), Article 055003
• Main Authors: Das, S. P., Hernández-Sánchez, J., Moretti, S., Rosado, A., Xoxocotzi, R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bosons; Conjugation; Flavor (particle physics); Higgs bosons; Jets; Matrix methods; Neutral currents; Quarks; Standard model (particle physics); Texture
• ISSN: 2470-0010; 2470-0029
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.94.055003

We analyze the prospects for observing the light and heavy CP-even neutral Higgs bosons (ϕ=h and H) in their decays into flavor violating bs¯ channels (including charge conjugation) at the proposed Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC), with s≈1.3  TeV, in the framework of a 2-Higgs doublet model (2HDM) Type III, assuming a four-zero texture in the Yukawa matrices and a general Higgs potential. We consider theoretically consistent scenarios in agreement with current experimental data from flavor and Higgs physics. We investigate the charged current production process νeϕq in presence of flavor violating decays of the Higgs bosons, that lead to a 3-jets+ET signature. We demand exactly two jets, one tagged b-jet and one light-flavor jet, all in the central rapidity region. The remaining jet (originated by the remnant quark q) is tagged in the forward or backward regions and this together with a central jet veto (not more than one light-flavor jet) are essential criterions to enhance the signal–to–background rates. We consider the most relevant standard model (SM) backgrounds, treating c-jets separately from light-flavor and gluon ones, while allowing for mistagging. We find that the SM-like Higgs boson, h, would be accessible within several parameter configurations of our model at approximately the 1−2σ level with 100  fb−1 of data. We also find that the heaviest neutral Higgs boson, H, with mass up to 150 GeV, would have a 1σ significance for the same data sample. At the end of the LHeC running, one would have ten times data accumulation and for all the Higgs masses the significances are enhanced so as to allow for detection of both the h and H state. Hence, one of the most viable extensions of 2HDMs with flavor changing neutral currents (FCNCs) generated at tree level but controlled by a four-zero texture approach in the Yukawa matrices, as opposed to the adoption of ad hoc discrete symmetries, could be put under scrutiny at a future ep machine.