Search for a Charged Higgs Boson Produced in the Vector-Boson Fusion Mode with Decay H^± →W^±Z using pp Collisions at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS Experiment

Abstract

A search for a charged Higgs boson, H^±, decaying to a W^± boson and a Z boson is presented. The search is based on 20.3 fb^-1 of proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The H^± boson is assumed to be produced via vector-boson fusion and the decays W^±→qq′¯ and Z→e⁺e^-/μ⁺μ^- are considered. The search is performed in a range of charged Higgs boson masses from 200 to 1000 GeV. No evidence for the production of an H^± boson is observed. Upper limits of 31-1020 fb at 95% C.L. are placed on the cross section for vector-boson fusion production of an H^± boson times its branching fraction to W^±Z. The limits are compared with predictions from the Georgi-Machacek Higgs triplet model.