Mass matrix Ansatz and lepton flavor violation in the THDM-III

Predictive Higgs-fermion couplings can be obtained when a specific texture for the fermion mass matrices is included in the general two-Higgs doublet model. We derive the form of these couplings in the charged lepton sector using a Hermitian mass matrix Ansatz with four-texture zeros. The presence of unconstrained phases in the vertices phi-li-lj modifies the pattern of flavor-violating Higgs interactions. Bounds on the model parameters are obtained from present limits on rare lepton flavor violating processes, which could be extended further by the search for the decay tau -> mu mu mu and mu-e conversion at future experiments. The signal from Higgs boson decays phi -> tau mu could be searched at the large hadron collider (LHC), while e-mu transitions could produce a detectable signal at a future e mu-collider, through the reaction e mu -> h0 -> tau tau.