Leptonic flavor violation in the Higgs sector at the LHC

We present the discovery potential of $p p \rightarrow \phi^0 \rightarrow \tau \mu +X$ at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with $\phi^0 = h^0 , \ H^{0} , \ A^0$. We choose a general Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) with non-negligible flavor changing couplings in the hadronic sector, in which $\phi^0$ couples to $t c$. Current data favors the alignment limit of a 2HDM where $\sin(\beta - \alpha) \approx 1$, which can enhance leptonic couplings to the light Higgs boson and might provide an observable flavor changing cross-section in that sector. We study the $\phi^0 \rightarrow \tau \mu$ channel for a range of $\cos(\beta - \alpha)$ and $\rho_{\tau \mu}$ values that can be consistent with the CMS excess in Run-1 and account for dominant physics background with realistic acceptance cuts at $\sqrt{s} = $ 13 TeV and 14 TeV.