Search for a light charged Higgs boson in the decay channel H^+ --> c¯s using the ATLAS detector

Abstract

A search for a light charged Higgs boson (H^±) decaying into two jets (c¯s) using pp collisions at s = sqrt(7 TeV) is presented. A data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb^-1 recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2011 has been analysed. The search is performed in the semi-leptonic t¯t channel, where one of the top quarks decays via t --> bH^±. The other top quark decays to bW, where the W boson decays to a lepton (e/μ) and a neutrino. The search is based on the invariant mass distribution of the two light jets in the final state as the discriminating variable. With no observation of an H^± signal, 95% confidence level(CL) upper limits are set on the decay branching ratio of top quarks to charged Higgs bosons. These limits are between 5% and 1% for charged Higgs boson masses between 90 and 150 GeV, and can be considered as model-independent limits on the decay branching ratio of top quarks to any charged boson beyond the Standard Model.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Frederick Loebinger (Supervisor)