Search for light pseudoscalar bosons, pair-produced in Higgs boson decays in the four-electron final state in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration Hayrapetyan, Aram ; Makarenko, Vladimir ; Tumasyan, Armen ; et al.
CMS-EXO-24-031, 2025.
Inspire Record 3086288 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.159276

A search for pairs of light neutral pseudoscalar bosons (A) resulting from the decay of a Higgs boson is performed. The search is conducted using LHC proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, collected with the CMS detector in 2016$-$2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. The A boson decays into a highly collimated electron-positron pair. A novel multivariate algorithm using tracks and calorimeter information is developed to identify these distinctive signatures, and events are selected with two such merged electron-positron pairs. No significant excess above the standard model background predictions is observed. Upper limits on the branching fraction for H $\to$ AA $\to$ 4e are set at 95% confidence level, for masses between 10 and 100 MeV and proper decay lengths below 100 $μ$m, reaching branching fraction sensitivities as low as 10$^{-5}$. This is the first search for Higgs boson decays to four electrons via light pseudoscalars at the LHC. It significantly improves the experimental sensitivity to axion-like particles with masses below 100 MeV.

15 data tables

Invariant mass distribution of the four-electron system ($m_{4 e}$) for selected events (points), compared to the background-only fit (red) with its $68\%$ and $95\%$~CL uncertainty bands (green and yellow). A non-stacked benchmark signal (blue) for a Higgs boson decaying to a pair of ALPs with $m_a=20MeV$ and $c \tau = 10\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ is overlaid and normalized to a branching ratio of $4.6 \times 10^{-5}$, which corresponds to the $95\%$~CL upper limit value set by this analysis. The lower panel shows the same data after subtracting the background fit.

Observed (solid points) and expected (dashed lines) $95\%$ CL upper limits on the Higgs boson branching fraction to a pair of ALPs decaying into electron-positron pairs ($ H \to A A \to e e$), shown as a function of the ALP mass for benchmark proper decay lengths of 1 $\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ (upper left), 10 $\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ (upper right), and 100 $\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ (lower left). The green and yellow bands represent the one and two standard deviation confidence intervals around the expected limits. The lower right panel shows a map of the observed $95\%$ CL upper limit, shown as a color scale, as a function of the ALP mass $m_ A$ and proper decay length $c \tau$.

A map of the observed $95\%$ CL upper limit on the Higgs boson branching fraction for $ H \to A A \to4 e$, as a function of the ALP mass and the ratio of the ALP coupling to electrons to the energy scale of the ALP effective interaction.

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Version 2
Search for vector-like leptons with long-lived particle decays in the CMS muon system in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration Chekhovsky, Vladimir ; Hayrapetyan, Aram ; Makarenko, Vladimir ; et al.
JHEP 08 (2025) 156, 2025.
Inspire Record 2902874 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.156846

A first search is presented for vector-like leptons (VLLs) decaying into a light long-lived pseudoscalar boson and a standard model $τ$ lepton. The pseudoscalar boson is assumed to have a mass below the $τ^+τ^-$ threshold, so that it decays exclusively into two photons. It is identified using the CMS muon system. The analysis is carried out using a data set of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment in 2016-2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Selected events contain at least one pseudoscalar boson decaying electromagnetically in the muon system and at least one hadronically decaying $τ$ lepton. No significant excess of data events is observed compared to the background expectation. Upper limits are set at 95% confidence level on the vector-like lepton production cross section as a function of the VLL mass and the pseudoscalar boson mean proper decay length. The observed and expected exclusion ranges of the VLL mass extend up to 700 and 670 GeV, respectively, depending on the pseudoscalar boson lifetime.

23 data tables

Distributions of the number of hits in the cluster (Nhits) for the DT category in the signal region (SR). The last histogram bin contains all overflow events.

The cluster reconstruction efficiency, including both DT and CSC clusters, as a function of the simulated r and |z| decay positions of the pseudoscalar into photons in events with MET > 200 GeV, for a VLL mass of 700 GeV and a pseudoscalar mass of 2 GeV, and a range of ctau values uniformly distributed between 0.01 and 0.1 m.

Distributions of the number of hits in the cluster (Nhits) for the CSC category in the signal region (SR). The last histogram bin contains all overflow events.

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Version 2
Search for long-lived particles decaying to a pair of muons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration Tumasyan, Armen ; Adam, Wolfgang ; Andrejkovic, Janik Walter ; et al.
JHEP 05 (2023) 228, 2023.
Inspire Record 2083735 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.129518

An inclusive search for long-lived exotic particles decaying to a pair of muons is presented. The search uses data collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in 2016 and 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 97.6 fb$^{-1}$. The experimental signature is a pair of oppositely charged muons originating from a common secondary vertex spatially separated from the pp interaction point by distances ranging from several hundred $\mu$m to several meters. The results are interpreted in the frameworks of the hidden Abelian Higgs model, in which the Higgs boson decays to a pair of long-lived dark photons Z$_\mathrm{D}$, and of a simplified model, in which long-lived particles are produced in decays of an exotic heavy neutral scalar boson. For the hidden Abelian Higgs model with $m_\mathrm{Z_D}$ greater than 20 GeV and less than half the mass of the Higgs boson, they provide the best limits to date on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson to dark photons for $c\tau$(Z$_\mathrm{D}$) (varying with $m_\mathrm{Z_D}$) between 0.03 and ${\approx}$ 0.5 mm, and above ${\approx}$ 0.5 m. Our results also yield the best constraints on long-lived particles with masses larger than 10 GeV produced in decays of an exotic scalar boson heavier than the Higgs boson and decaying to a pair of muons.

150 data tables

Level-1 muon trigger efficiency in cosmic-ray muon data (blue) and signal simulation (red) as a function of $d_0$, for the Level-1 trigger $p_T$ threshold used in the 2016 analysis triggers. The denominator in the efficiency calculation is the number of STA muons with $|\eta| < 1.2$ and $p_T > 33$ GeV.

Level-1 muon trigger efficiency in cosmic-ray muon data (blue) and signal simulation (red) as a function of $d_0$, for the Level-1 trigger $p_T$ threshold used in the 2016 analysis triggers. The denominator in the efficiency calculation is the number of STA muons with $|\eta| < 1.2$ and $p_T > 33$ GeV.

Level-1 muon trigger efficiency in cosmic-ray muon data (blue) and signal simulation (red) as a function of $d_0$, for the Level-1 trigger $p_T$ threshold used in the 2018 analysis triggers. The denominator in the efficiency calculation is the number of STA muons with $|\eta| < 1.2$ and $p_T > 28$ GeV.

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