Search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of light pseudoscalars in the final state with two b quarks and two τ leptons in proton–proton collisions at s=13TeV

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2018
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Elsevier
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A search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of light pseudoscalar bosons is performed for the first time in the final state with two b quarks and two τ leptons. The search is motivated in the context of models of physics beyond the standard model (SM), such as two Higgs doublet models extended with a complex scalar singlet (2HDM + S), which include the next-to-minimal supersymmetric SM (NMSSM). The results are based on a data set of proton–proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9fb−1, accumulated by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2016 at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV. Masses of the pseudoscalar boson between 15 and 60GeV are probed, and no excess of events above the SM expectation is observed. Upper limits between 3 and 12% are set on the branching fraction B(h→aa→2τ2b) assuming the SM production of the Higgs boson. Upper limits are also set on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson to two light pseudoscalar bosons in different 2HDM + S scenarios. Assuming the SM production cross section for the Higgs boson, the upper limit on this quantity is as low as 20% for a mass of the pseudoscalar of 40GeV in the NMSSM.

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CMS Collaboration. "Search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of light pseudoscalars in the final state with two b quarks and two τ leptons in proton–proton collisions at s=13TeV." Physics Letters B, 785, (2018) Elsevier: 462-488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.08.057.

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This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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