A simple method to detect spontaneous CP violation in multi-Higgs models

For models with several Higgs doublets we present an alternative method to the one proposed by Branco, Gerard and Grimus, in 1984, to check whether or not CP is spontaneously violated in the Higgs potential. The previous method is powerful and rigorous. It requires the identification of a matrix U corresponding to a symmetry of the Lagrangian and verifying a simple relation involving the vacuum expectation values. The nonexistence of such a matrix signals spontaneous CP violation. This approach may be far from trivial as complexity grows with the number of Higgs doublets. In such cases it may turn out to be easier to analyse the potential by going to the so-called Higgs basis. The transformation to the Higgs basis is straightforward once the vacuum expectation values are known. The method proposed in this work is also powerful and rigorous and can be particularly useful to analyse models with more than two Higgs doublets and with continuous symmetries.