Doubly charged Higgs at LHC

Abstract

We have investigated the production of doubly charged Higgs particles Δ L, R ++ via the WW fusion process in proton-proton collisions at LHC energies in the framework of the left-right symmetric model. The production cross section of the right-triplet Higgs Δ R ++ is for representative values of the model parameters at femtobarn level. The discovery reach depends on the mass of the right-handed gauge boson W R . At best Δ R ++ masses up to 2.4 TeV are achievable within a one-year run. For Δ L ++ the corresponding limit is 1.75 TeV which depends on the value of the left-triplet vev ν L . Comparison with Drell-Yan pair production processes shows that studies of the WW fusion processes extend the discovery reach of LHC roughly by a factor of two. The main experimental signal of a produced Δ L, R ++ would be a hard same-sign lepton pair. There will be no substantial background due to the Standard Model (SM) interactions, since in the SM a same-sign lepton pair will always be associated with missing energy, i.e. neutrinos, due to lepton number conservation.