Hunting a charged Higgs boson pair in proton-proton collisions

We explore the production and the possible detection of a charged scalar Higgs pair H^-H^+ decaying into a final state _cb in proton-proton collisions, i. e, pp H^- H^+ _ cb. These charged scalars are predicted in the Two-Higgs Doublet Model of type III (2HDM-III), particularly we analyze masses of such a particle of the order of the top quark mass. The analysis is applied to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its next step, the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). As a test and validation of the model, we identify regions of the 2HDM-III parameter space that accommodate the current excess of events at 3 in the process BR (t H^b) BR (H^ cb) for M₇^=130 GeV reported by ATLAS collaboration. Additional experimental constraints are also included. Based on it, we propose realistic scenarios that could be brought to experimental scrutiny at the LHC and HL-LHC. Assuming the best scenario, we predict a signal significance of 5 for the charged scalar boson mass M₇^ in the 120-240 GeV interval.