Probing the charged Higgs quantum numbers through the decay H^+ -> W^+ h⁰

The vertex H^+_\alpha W^-h^0_\beta, involving the gauge boson W^+- and the charged (H^+-_\alpha) and neutral Higgs bosons (h^0_\beta), arises within the context of many extensions of the SM, and it can be used to probe the quantum numbers of the Higgs multiplet. After presenting a general discusion for the expected form of this vertex with arbitrary Higgs representations, we discuss its strength for several specific models, which include: i) the Two-Higgs Doublet Model (THDM), both the generic and the SUSY case, and ii) models with additional Higgs triplets, including both SUSY and non-SUSY cases. We find that in these models, there are regions of parameters where the decay H^+_\alpha -> W^+ h^0_\beta, is kinematically allowed, and reaches Branching Ratios (BR) that may be detectable, thus allowing to test the properties of the Higgs sector.