Search for Higgs boson decay to a charm quark-antiquark pair in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

CMS Collaboration

Preprint

PUBDB-2022-04484

Search for Higgs boson decay to a charm quark-antiquark pair in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

CMS Collaboration (Collaboration author)DESY*

2022

[10.3204/PUBDB-2022-04484]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.3204/PUBDB-2022-04484

Report No.: CERN-EP-2022-081; CMS-HIG-21-008; arXiv:2205.05550

Abstract: A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a charm quark-antiquark pair, H $\to \mathrm{c\bar{c}}$, produced in association with a leptonically decaying V (W or Z) boson is presented. The search is performed with proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Novel charm jet identification and analysis methods using machine learning techniques are employed. The analysis is validated by searching for Z $\to \mathrm{c\bar{c}}$ in VZ events, leading to its first observation at a hadron collider with a significance of 5.7 standard deviations. The observed (expected) upper limit on $\sigma$(VH)$\mathcal{B}$(H$\to \mathrm{c\bar{c}}$) is 0.94 (0.50$^{+0.22}_{-0.15}$) pb at 95% confidence level (CL), corresponding to 14 (7.6$^{+3.4}_{-2.3}$) times the standard model prediction. For the Higgs-charm Yukawa coupling modifier, $\kappa_\mathrm{c}$, the observed (expected) 95% CL interval is 1.1 $\lt\vert\kappa_\mathrm{C}\vert \lt$ 5.5 ($\vert\kappa_\mathrm{c}\vert\lt$ 3.4), the most stringent constraint to date.

Keyword(s): p p: scattering ; p p: colliding beams ; Higgs particle: hadroproduction ; vector boson: associated production ; Higgs particle: hadronic decay ; charm: pair production ; jet: charm ; charm: particle identification ; Higgs particle: coupling ; coupling: Yukawa ; CERN LHC Coll ; CMS ; channel cross section: branching ratio: upper limit ; coupling constant: upper limit ; neural network ; statistical analysis ; data analysis method ; experimental results ; 13000 GeV-cms

Note: Submitted to Physical Review Letters. All figures and tables can be found at http://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/HIG-21-008 (CMS Public Pages)

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