Search for the decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of light pseudoscalar bosons in the final state with four bottom quarks in proton-proton collisions at $$ sqrt{textrm{s}} $$ = 13 TeV | CU Experts

Abstract; A search is presented for the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson (H) to a pair of new light pseudoscalar bosons (a), followed by the prompt decay of each a boson to a bottom quark-antiquark pair, $$ textrm{H}to textrm{aa}to textrm{b}overline{textrm{b}}textrm{b}overline{textrm{b}} $$; H; →; aa; →; b; ; b; ¯; ; b; ; b; ¯; ; . The analysis is performed using a data sample of proton-proton collisions collected with the CMS detector at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. To reduce the background from standard model processes, the search requires the Higgs boson to be produced in association with a leptonically decaying W or Z boson. The analysis probes the production of new light bosons in a 15 < ma < 60 GeV mass range. Assuming the standard model predictions for the Higgs boson production cross sections for pp → WH and ZH, model independent upper limits at 95% confidence level are derived for the branching fraction $$ mathcal{B}left(textrm{H}to textrm{aa}to textrm{b}overline{textrm{b}}textrm{b}overline{textrm{b}}right) $$; B; ; ; H; →; aa; →; b; ; b; ¯; ; b; ; b; ¯; ; ; ; . The combined WH and ZH observed upper limit on the branching fraction ranges from 1.10 for ma = 20 GeV to 0.36 for ma = 60 GeV, complementing other measurements in the μμττ, ττττ and bbℓℓ (ℓ = μ, τ) channels.

Hayrapetyan A; Tumasyan A; Adam W; Andrejkovic JW; Bergauer T; Chatterjee S; Damanakis K; Dragicevic M; Hussain PS; Jeitler M

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