43rd International Conference on High Energy Physics

Hunting Vector-Like Top Quarks via Charged Higgs Decays to Dileptons and b-Jets at the LHC

Not scheduled

20m

Natal Convention Center

Poster (early career: student or postdoctoral researcher) Beyond the Standard Model

Speaker

Mbark Berrouj (Polydisciplinary Faculty, Laboratory of Fundamental and Applied Physics, Cadi Ayyad University)

Description

We investigate the discovery prospects of a vector-like top partner (VLT) in the Type-II Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM-II) extended by a vector-like quark (VLQ) doublet ($TB$) at the 14~TeV Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this work, the VLT is pair-produced via $pp \to T\bar{T}$ and predominantly decays through the cascade $T \to H^+ b \to t b b$, with the top quark decaying leptonically. The resulting final state, comprising an opposite-sign lepton pair and multiple $b$-jets, offers a clean experimental signature. We evaluate the discovery significance as a function of the VLT and charged Higgs masses, integrated luminosity, and background systematic uncertainties. For $m_{H^\pm} = 600$~GeV and 5\% systematic uncertainty, a $5\sigma$ discovery is achievable for $m_T \lesssim 1300$~GeV with 300~fb$^{-1}$ luminosity. At higher luminosities of 1000 and 3000~fb$^{-1}$, the reach extends to 1500--1600~GeV, depending on the level of systematic uncertainty. While heavier $H^\pm$ masses reduce sensitivity, discovery remains attainable at high luminosity.