Determining the ratio of the H^+ -> \tau \nu to H^+ -> t b-bar decay rates for large \tan\beta at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

We present results on the determination of the observable ratio R=BR(H^+ -> \tau \nu)/BR(H^+ -> t b-bar) of charged Higgs boson decay rates as a discriminant quantity between Supersymmetric and non-Supersymmetric models. Simulation of measurements of this quantity through the analysis of the charged Higgs production process gb-> t b H^+ and relative backgrounds in the two above decay channels has been performed in the context of ATLAS. A ~12-14% accuracy on R can be achieved for \tan\beta=50, \mHc=300-500 GeV and after an integrated luminosity of 300 fb^-1. With this precision measurement, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can easily discriminate between models for the two above scenarios, so long as \tan\beta > 20.

Comments: LaTeX, 11 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, Contribution to the Les Houches workshop ``Physics at TeV Colliders'', 26 May - 6 June, 2003