Lotti, Mikko
(Helsingin yliopisto, 2022)
Standard Model of particle physics is considered the most accurate description of elementary par- ticles and their interactions. Experimental observations, however, point clearly that the Standard Model doesn’t explain all phenomena in nature, such as the origin of dark matter and the matter- antimatter asymmetry in the universe. Therefore, beyond the Standard Model theories try to give explanations to the open questions by hypothesising the existence of new elementary particles. Many extensions of the Standard Model introduce five Higgs bosons, two of which are electrically charged.
The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is designed to study the predictions of the Standard Model and search for new particles predicted by beyond the Standard Model theories. In this thesis, a search for charged Higgs bosons is presented in the neutral Higgs boson and W boson decay channel. This is the first time an experimental search is conducted in this decay channel. The neutral Higgs boson decays to two tau leptons are studied while the W boson decays to a muon or an electron and a neutrino. This thesis focuses on two channels, where both tau leptons decay hadronically. The data has been collected using the Compact Muon Solenoid detector during the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The analysis uses a data-driven background measurement to estimate the dominating Standard Model background processes, where a jet is misidentified as a hadronically decaying tau lepton. Other minor background processes are estimated using simulation. The analysis is optimised to search for charged Higgs bosons in the mass range of 300 GeV and 700 GeV.
Finally, the transverse mass distribution of the charged Higgs boson is reconstructed. Since no deviation from the Standard Model prediction is found, upper exclusion limits are extracted on the production cross section and branching fraction of the charged Higgs boson. To increase the signal sensitivity, the results are combined with two additional channels with one hadronically decaying tau lepton.