Charged Higgs-boson pair production in association with the $Z^0$ boson at electron-positron colliders

Abstract

In this paper, the production of the charged Higgs pair associated with the $Z^0$ boson is analyzed in the minimal extension of the standard model the so-called two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM). The process $e^+e^- \rightarrow H^+H^-Z^0$ is calculated at the tree level including all the possible diagrams in 2HDM. The numerical analysis is performed in consideration of the current experimental constraints and various scenarios for the free parameters of the model. The results are presented as a function of center-of-mass energy, the charged Higgs mass ($m_{H^\pm}$), and the ratio of the vacuum expectation values ($t_\beta$). The unpolarized cross section, taking into account the results in the flavor physics, gets up to $0.278\text{ fb}$ for $m_{H^\pm}=175\text{ GeV}$, and it declines with decreasing $m_{H^\pm}$ in Type-I. However, it gets down to $0.073\text{ fb}$ for $m_{H^\pm}=500\text{ GeV}$ in Type-II. Further, the calculation is also carried out in the non-alignment scenario and low-$m_{h^0}$ scenario. The effect of the polarized incoming $e^+$ and $e^-$ beams shows that the cross section is enhanced by a factor up to 2.5 at P(+0.60,-0.80) polarization configuration. Decay channels of the charged Higgs, possible final states of the process, and some differential distributions belong to the charged Higgs and $Z^0$ boson are examined for each scenario. The analysis shows that some channels have higher branching ratio such as $H^+\rightarrow t \bar{b}$, $H^+\rightarrow W^+h^0$, and $H^+\rightarrow W^+H^0$. These decay channels are essential for the charged Higgs searches in the lepton colliders regarding the scenarios interested. The detection of the charged Higgs is a powerful sign for the extended scalar sectors, and the results show the potential of a future lepton collider.