Charged Higgs boson in the W± Higgs channel at the Large Hadron Collider

In light of the recent discovery of a neutral Higgs boson, H-obs, with a mass near 125 GeV, we reassess the LHC discovery potential of a charged Higgs boson, H-+/-, in the (WHobs)-H-+/- decay channel. This decay channel can be particularly important for a H-+/- heavier than the top quark, when it is produced through the pp -> tH(+/-) process. The knowledge of the mass of H-obs provides an additional handle in the kinematic selection when reconstructing a Breit-Wigner resonance in the H-obs -> b (b) over bar decay channel. We consider some extensions of the Standard Model Higgs sector, with and without supersymmetry, and perform a dedicated signal-to-background analysis to test the scope of this channel for the LHC running at the design energy (14 TeV), for 300 fb(-1) (standard) and 3000 fb(-1) (high) integrated luminosities. We find that, while this channel does not show much promise for a supersymmetric H-+/- state, significant portions of the parameter spaces of several two-Higgs doublet models are testable. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.