A search is presented for the single production of a heavy vector-like quark (B) decaying to a Higgs boson and a bottom quark, $\mathrm{B}\rightarrow\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b}$, with the Higgs boson decaying to a pair of bottom quarks. The decay products of the Higgs boson are highly boosted, hence typically collimated. They are reconstructed as a single, massive jet, with heavy flavour content. The single production of vector-like quarks is characterised by the presence of a light flavour quark emitted in the forward region of the detector. The analysis is performed using a data sample collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13~\mathrm{TeV}$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $35.9~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. The observation is consistent with background expectation and upper limits are placed on the production cross section times the branching ratio of a vector-like quark B decaying to a Higgs boson and a bottom quark. Values of cross section times branching ratio above $0.07$--$1.28~\mathrm{pb}$ are excluded at $95\%$ confidence level for masses of $700$--$1800~\mathrm{GeV}$, assuming a resonance with negligible width with respect to experimental resolution. Similar sensitivity is observed for different assumptions on the intrinsic width of the vector-like quark B.
Distribution in the reconstructed B quark mass after applying all selections to events with no forward jets and in the low mass analysis, compared to the background distributions estimated before fitting.
Distribution in the reconstructed B quark mass after applying all selections to events with at least one forward jet and in the low mass analysis, compared to the background distributions estimated before fitting.
Distribution in the reconstructed B quark mass after applying all selections to events with no forward jets and in the low mass analysis, compared to the background distributions estimated before fitting.
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