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 $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration
JHEP 06 (2024) 097, 2024.

Abstract (data 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, $\textrm{H} \rightarrow$ aa $\rightarrow$ bbbb. 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 $\textrm{fb}^{-1}$. 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 $15 < \textrm{m}_{a} < 60$ GeV mass range. Assuming the standard model predictions for the Higgs boson production cross sections for pp $\rightarrow$ WH and ZH, model independent upper limits at 95% confidence level are derived for the branching fraction $\mathcal{B}(\textrm{H} \rightarrow$ aa $\rightarrow$ bbbb). The combined WH and ZH observed upper limit on the branching fraction ranges from 1.10 for $\textrm{m}_{a} = 20$ GeV to 0.36 for $\textrm{m}_{a} = 60$ GeV, complementing other measurements in the $\mu\mu\tau\tau$, $\tau\tau\tau\tau$ and bb$\ell\ell$ ($\ell=\mu, \tau$) channels.

  • Figure 1

    Data from Figure 1, located on page 10

    10.17182/hepdata.147309.v1/t1

    Post-fit BDT distributions in the WH channel extracted with the ma = 60 GeV signal hypothesis. Signal regions for the...

  • Figure 2

    Data from Figure 2, located on page 11

    10.17182/hepdata.147309.v1/t2

    Post-fit BDT distributions in the ZH channel extracted with the ma = 60 GeV signal hypothesis. Signal regions for the...

  • Figure 3

    Data from Figure 3, located on page 14

    10.17182/hepdata.147309.v1/t3

    Model independent 95% CL upper limits on σ(VH) B(H → aa → bbbb)/σ(SM) for the WH channel (upper), the ZH...

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