Search for a Doubly Charged Higgs Boson Decaying to Muons or Electrons: Prospects for CMS with HL-LHC

A variety of exotic models predict a doubly charged Higgs-like particle that can be pair-produced in hadronic interactions via a Drell-Yan-like mechanism. The H++ and H-- have TeV-scale mass and can each decay to a pair of like-sign leptons (muons or electrons in this study), providing a distinctive event signature. We report the results of a simulation study of the CMS detector for p-p collisions at 14 TeV with average pile-up (interactions per bunch crossing) of 200. The efficiencies for the signal and major Standard Model backgrounds are determined and an event selection is developed that enhances the sensitivity of the search. We present an estimate of the expected lower limit on the mass of the doubly charged Higgs.